The Gate To Carpathia
by AlexCaletia
Summary: A spoof of fantasy-adventure books, video games, and roleplaying games. Can a band of adventurers overcome unemployment, inadequate health coverage, and poor-quality magical items to solve a mystery and defeat an evil economist bent on world domination?
1. A Hero's First Steps

**The Gate to Carpathia**

**Chapter 1: A Hero's First Steps**

"You have completed your last and final test", the Prince told Tariel. "Now, you will be officially known as one of the elite Paladins of Altaria!"

Tariel was skeptical. "Are you saying that's it? I mean, I paid 3,000 gold pieces for this training course, and all I got was the three tutorial quests. I 'm still 1st level, and I still don't have much of a clue where to go next. I mean, there was nothing about where to go to get quests or equipment or anything!"

The Prince gave Tariel a large stack of books. "Everything you will ever need to know about adventuring is right in these," he said. "How to get quests, combat tips, advice on romantic relationships, you name it. Read them carefully."

"What!?" Tariel replied. "You just give me the books and tell me to read them? You're supposed to be training me, Prince Arthanis! If I wanted the books, I would have just bought them for a lot cheaper."

""Read the books and heed them," the Prince intoned. "Who knows, maybe you'll find the Gate to Carpathia,"

"Carpathia? Where's that?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you about the legend of Carpathia? Here goes. The story started over 400 years ago. Somehow, a magical teleportation portal opened up right outside our capital city. Several strange people came through the portal, and spread numerous stories about their land, which they called Carpathia, and all the great things that were in there. Everyone wanted to see what wonders were in this new land. So hundreds of adventurers went thorough, but none of them ever returned. Now, of course, since no one returned, it was assumed that something evil lurked beyond the portal, and the "ambassadors" that came through were really just imposters looking to lure adventurers to an early grave. The imposters, of course, were quickly lynched, drawn, quartered, beheaded, and subject to other forms of torture that are really kind of disgusting, so I won't talk about them. Anyway, with all the adventurers going through there, it was only a matter of time before Altaria became completely depopulated of adventurers. So a dozen of the most powerful wizards in the kingdom got together, and cast a spell that would close off the portal forever.

"So what's the big deal about it now?"

"Apparently, the wizards made a mistake when casting the spell. It seems that the results of the spell were that the portal was not destroyed, simply our end of it was moved to another location, somewhere in Altaria."

"And nobody's found it after 400 years of looking?"

"Well, it hasn't been until about the past decade that adventurers have actually been looking. If you haven't heard, there have been no major wars or conflicts for the past decade, so plenty of adventurers are busy looking for evil to fight. And an ancient place of great evil is just what they're looking for."

"I will find that Gate to Carpathia. And I will solve the mystery. I will find out what truly lies behind that portal."

"Good, you have started the first stage of your quest. I will give you advice on where to begin. Start by traveling to the Temple of Sherma, located just two kilometers south of the city gates. Sherma is the Goddess of Travel, so there might be some ancient scrolls in his temples that ell you where the portal is."

Tariel began to walk out of the palace, starting out on his quest to find the Gate to Carpathia. "Well, I guess maybe all the money I paid for the Prince's training course might have actually been worth it", he muttered to himself.

_And thus our hero's quest begins_

_As a 1st level Paladin…_

_Will he succeed where others failed?_

_Or will he lose and have to bail?_


	2. The First Quest

**Chapter 2: The First Quest**

            Tariel rode up to the Temple of Sherma, not knowing what to expect. He had been reading all the books Prince Arthanis had given him, and in many of them the heroes had to face dangers inside of ancient temples. "But, this isn't a temple of an evil god", Tariel thought. "At least I don't think so. Normally, travel isn't evil. I mean, unless you count the time when my horse-driven carriage broke down during the first tutorial quest and I had to wait three days for AAA roadside assistance, but I don't think that was Sherma's fault." Nevertheless, Tarial entered the Temple of Sherma, and soon found himself in a large room, virtually empty except for huge maps covering the gigantic walls. There was also an altar in the middle of the room, which Tariel approacehed, always on the lookout for traps. He stood before the altar, and prayed fervently,

"Sherma, tell me where the Gate to Carpathia is. Or at least tell me how I can find out where it is."

A voice boomed from above:

"Tariel. You must first locate the Sarced Book of Sherma. It is the only book that is read by virtually no one, and legend says that whoever reads it will instantly gain access to a vast storehouse of knowledge of the world. But the few who do read it disagree, saying that it does not answer the questions they pose. Nevertheless, those who write it say that it is absolutely essential."

"I think I got it. You mean, it's like an instruction maual?"

"Yes, it is. You figured out the riddle. The instruction manual is located on the bottom of the altar. Good luck."

Tariel flipped through the Sacred Book of Sherma. "Now I know why nobody reads these things," he thought. "They're way too big, they don't even have an index, and the table of contents isn't much help either. I mean, most religious texts at least have a chapter and verse numbering system so it's easy to tell people where to find things." Nevertheless, Tariel found what he was looking for.

[Chapter 12: Travel and Navigation]

[Verses 36-45: Using the Map]

36. And thou shalt travel to the Temple of Sherma, and though shalt go up to the altar:

37. And thou shalt put the Sacred Mouse Pointer over the Jewel of Search,

38. And thou shalt set the Search Settings to say: Search for the Whole Phrase, Part of the Phrase, or Whatever You Want, depending on what you want to search for:

39. And thou shalt say: "Search for XXXXXXXX", where XXXXXXXX is the name of the place for which you want to search (not more than Ten Characters)

40. And on the Altar Screen the Results will appear,

41. And from there you will find enlightenment,

42. But you may want to watch out, because

43. Enlightenment is not guaranteed forever,

44. And if you want to continue to partake of the Temple of Sherma,

45. Thou must pay the sum of Seventy-Five Gold Pieces per Month.

"This is ridiculous", Tariel said as he grudgingly inserted 75 gold pieces into the slot in the altar. "They charge for everything. At this rate, I'll soon go broke. I mean, what do the gods need with my 75 measly gold pieces? It's not like they need the money to fund some mysterious evil scheme."

_Meanwhile, in Sherma's realm…_

            Sherma was talking to the Dark Lord Kalmeth about their evil plan. "I put false data in the map search databases in all my temples," explained Sherma. "Now, whenever anyone searches for the Gate to Carpathia, they'll be given directions to the nearest Temple of the Snake." Kalmeth was pleased. "This is going to make a lot of money for us, big time. Now, those gullible adventurers will be doubly fleeced. They have to pay you 75 gold pieces per month, and then in order to get access to the Temple of the Snake they'll have to pay another 200 gold pieces to me. And then finally they might make it. And once they find the gate, they'll be so broke that they have no choice. Altaria will be mine!"

_Back in the __Temple__…___

Tariel talked into the altar. "Search for the Gate to Carpathia," he said. He waited a second, and a thunderous response came back:

"Error. Search phrases must be ten characters or less."

"Okay, then. Search for Carpathia."

"One result found. The scroll with the results on it is in the drawer below."

Tariel read the scroll. "Teleport Gate 167A, destination Carpathia, location 1714.63 north by 6971.41 west." "Now that was easy," Tariel thought. "I wonder why it's so much harder in all the books. I mean, this scroll wasn't even written in a foreign language."

_What is with this evil plan?_

_Will Kalmeth conquer the land?_

_Will our hero find the Gate?_

_Will these tortuous rhymes abate?_


	3. Magical Technology

**Chapter 3: Magical Technology**

            Tariel returned to Altaria Palace, ready to share the news of his findings with the Prince. "You have completed the quest," the Prince said. "Congratulations."

"Good, now where's my reward?" Tariel replied. "And it better be a good one or I'm going to report you to the Better Business Bureau. You've fleeced me out of enough money already."

"You will certainly be pleased with my reward", Prince Arthanis replied. "It's a brand new crystal bill. The latest in magical technology."

Tariel looked at the crystal ball skeptically. It looked no different than an ordinary crystal ball, except for a small socket on one side. But Tariel had never seen anything that could possibly fit into that socket.

"Palantir Technologies, X1A prototype", Prince Arthanis explained. "According to the manufacturer, with this crystal ball you can just shout into it what you want to see, and then the crystal ball will automatically show you what you want to see."

"Well, then, let's solve the mystery of Carpathia once and for all." replied Tariel. He then spoke into the crystal ball.

"Show me Carpathia."

The material inside the crystal ball began to churn and swirl. It eventually coalesced into a few simple words:

**404 ERROR – LOCATION NOT FOUND**

**Please try the following:**

- Click the Refresh button, or try again later.

- If you said the name of the kingdom you are looking for into the crystal ball, make sure that it is pronounced correctly.

- To check your connection settings, click the MAGICAL TOOLS menu, and then click CLAIRVOYANCE OPTIONS. Under the CONNECTIONS tab, click PRAY DESPERATELY FOR HELP. The settings should match those provided by your local master wizard (LMW) or the ancient inscription scroll (AIS) that came with your crystal ball.

- If you are trying to reach a secure dungeon, make sure your party's abilities can support it. Click the PARTY TOOLS menu, and then click CHECK SKILLS. Check settings for lockpicking skills, trap disarmament, and swordfighting ability.

"This isn't as good as I thought it would be," said Tariel. He said something else into the crystal ball.

"Show me the Gate to Carpathia."

Same error message.

"Who knows, maybe Carpathia doesn't exist after all," thought Tariel. "Let's try someplace we know exists, to see if it's working."

"Show me Altaria Palace."

Still the same error message appeared.

"It doesn't look like this little crystal ball of yours is working, Prince Arthanis. Not that I'm surprised, since you haven't managed to give me a single good piece of equipment even after all the training and quests."

"I'm sorry you feel that way. But who knows, maybe you'll figure out how to get those things to work."

Tariel decided to go back to the tavern. Artalax, a powerful wizard friend of his, often hung out there. Hopefully Artalax would be able to fix the mysterious crystal ball."

"Hello, Artalax. How have things been going lately?"

"Not very good. I haven't gotten a single quest in almost two months now. There just isn't any work around anymore. What with the "decade of peace," it's so peaceful that there isn't much left for adventurers to do."

"Well, I just finished my first quest, and this is what I got as a reward," Tariel said, showing Artalax the crystal ball. "The Prince said this was the latest in magical technology, but it doesn't seem to work."

Artalax examined the ball. "This sure doesn't look very new, especially given that it probably isn't even 15 inches wide. The crystal ball I've got back at my house is really the latest. 42 inches wide, flat-panel high resolution display. It makes it a lot easier to spy on the forces of evil, if there were any. But maybe if you bring this crystal ball to my house tomorrow we can figure this out. I mean, that socket thing is really something new."

_"Magical technology!"_

_"It doesn't work! You see? You see?"_

_But since Kalmeth, and Sherma too,_

_Are evil, there's no time to lose..._


	4. Supply and Demand

**Chapter 4: Supply and Demand**

            The next morning, Artalax and Tariel were ready to try again to get their new crystal ball to work. But before they could get started, Artalax started reading the newspaper. "I think this here is something you should read," he told Tariel. "It might be important for your future.

**Unemployment Rate for Adventurers at Record High Levels**

_Analysts Blame "Evil Shortage"; Prince Arthanis Announces Job Creation Plan_

According to the latest economic census, the unemployment rate for adventurers and heroes has increased for the 10th straight year to 47 percent, the highest it has been in over 400 years. While adventurers could once count on a steady supply of income from thwarting evil schemes and killing horrible monsters, they are increasingly finding that, in the words of one 12th level paladin, "there just isn't enough evil out there left to fight anymore." "No kobold! No goblin! No guga-gat! No ouga-douga-bibberbasher!" complained Kreg Grok, a 7th-level half-orc fighter. Adventurers not directly involved in combat have also been affected. "Everywhere I go in this kingdom, it seems like there are just no desecrated temples left to purify anymore," explained Halia Hieron, a 14th level human cleric. "I know, yes, I probably could put my skills to use healing the peasantry, but back at the seminary all they taught me was the basic hit point healing spells, curing spells, and the combat buffs. None of those would be useful domestically – what I really need is a "Cure Scurvy and Malnutrition" spell or a "Purge Bubonic Plague" spell – those might be useful." Nevertheless, while analysts are unable to explain the trend, predictions for the future look grim for adventurers. The trend shows no signs of reversing.

            On the political front, reactions to the news were mixed. Many non-adventurers are happy with the situation, praising Prince Arthanis for his "wise and benevolent rule" that has led the kingdom to a state of near-complete peace for the past 10 years. "Since Prince Arthanis came to the throne our farm hasn't been attacked by bandits once," explained a peasant. "Now maybe some adventurer doesn't get his glory, but at least I can eat for once." While Prince Arthanis has a record-high approval rating of 87 percent among the peasant and serf demographics, many are skeptical about whether his strict "anti-evil" policies bode well for the kingdom's future. "Unless Prince Arthanis wants to return Altaria to a completely agricultural economy and destroy all progress we have made toward an industrialized society, the fact of the matter is that getting rid of all the jobs for adventurers is simply economic suicide," said an economist with the Royal Guild of Economists. However, Prince Arthanis says he has a plan to give the adventurers new jobs by "using their prowess in fighting evil to solve the challenges of a new millennium." In a recent speech, he explained: "For example, thief es who specialize in sneaking into places and stealing other people's hard-earned stashes are being actively recruited as tax collection agents. So, as you can see, I really do have a plan for leading this kingdom to a better economy. So vote for me next election. Wait a second, we don't have elections; we're not a democracy yet. But you can at least not try to assassinate me.  That would be a big help."

_Meanwhile, somewhere in Carpathia…_

The Lady of Darkness, chief assistant to the Dark Lord Kalmeth, brought Kalmeth a copy of the same newspaper article printed above. "Here is your latest intelligence report," she said. "So, how's your evil plan coming?"

Kalmeth read the article. "I knew it," he said, "everything is going exactly according to plan. Soon they will be defenseless and our forces will be able to invade. How ignorant they are, not seeing what is so obvious. It's no wonder they are so backward and primitive."

"Wait a second, I'm still kind of confused about what this evil plan is, Kalmeth," she replied. "Can you explain it to me again?"

"It is a simple matter of economics. We bribe the run-of-the mill evil guys. The robbers, the bandits, the heretics, and the like. We bribe them to lay off for a while."

"But how does that help?"

Kalmeth continued: "The process is happening right now as we speak. With all the evil essentially gone, because of us, all the adventurers are out of a job, and those who do can't make much money. We get rid of the demand for adventurers, the price decreases and then the supply decreases to maintain equilibrium. Supply and demand. Basic principles of economics."

"And how does that help us conquer them?"

"Simple, extremely simple. That is also happening as we speak. The adventurers lose their jobs, so they move to a place where jobs are plentiful. Like Carpathia, for instance. And we have a deal with Sherma, the Goddess of Travel. She leads them to our Temples of the Snake, where adventurers have to pay even more money, to us."

"Oh, I get it, so that's like supply and demand too. There's an increased demand for information on where the Gate to Carpathia is, so the price goes up and people will pay us more money for it."

"Correct, Lady of Darkness. I see you may be becoming an economist just like me. Anyway, soon Altaria will be depleted of adventurers, and we will have the money to build an army and invade. And with no adventurers, they will be defenseless!"

"This sounds like a quite awkward plan. Do you really think it's going to work?"

"I have a doctorate in economics from Carpathia University. Or at least, I almost do. I know what I'm talking about. In fact, I was told that this specific plan was foolproof."

FLASHBACK TO WHEN KALMETH (ALMOST) GOT HIS DOCTORATE IN ECONOMICS FROM CARPATHIA UNIVERSITY

Kalmeth approached his professor cautiously, uncertain of his fate. "So, Professor Keldar, have you read my thesis yet?"

"Yes, I did, and I showed it to several of my colleagues for peer review. They all agreed that the plan was completely foolproof."

"So does that mean I get my degree now?"

"Well, if I understand correctly, this thesis involves an evil plan to take over a kingdom by destroying its economy. University policy clearly dictates that we do not give credit for theses that involve evil plans to take over the world. Believe me; we've had plenty of them."

"No!" Kalmeth boomed in a sinister voice. "I have worked for years on this! You will not trifle with this plan so easily!"

"Like I said, we don't give credit for evil plans. Remember what happened a few years ago, when we gave a doctorate in divinity to that guy who had a plan to release the evil Deities of Doom from Cataclysmica. He would have succeeded, if only the good-aligned gods hadn't intervened."

"But my plan is perfect!" Kalmeth said. "My plan will work. Completely. Sign the thesis!"

"Anyway, Kalmeth, here is what happened. Kelenda, our patron deity, had to step in and tell us not to give degrees to people with evil plans, so that wouldn't happen again. And as a Good-aligned institution it is our policy not to contravene direct orders from major deities-"

"Those insolent deities know nothing," Kalmeth replied. "Why, they don't even know the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Don't be stopped by such trifling concerns as morality. Join with me in my plan. Sign this thesis and together we will rule the kingdom of Altaria as economist and, well, fellow economist."

"I will never succumb to the dark side!" Professor Keldar said, and then started praying to the gods. "Adamicus Smithicus, God of Economics, protect me from this evil that is in my midst!"

A voice boomed from the air: "I am Adamicus Smithicus, God of Economics. I would be glad to help you. However, we do not believe in government interference, and neither do you. Capitalism is the key."

Kalmeth pointed his staff at the professor, ready to cast a fireball spell that would immolate him. "I told you the deities know nothing," he said. "One final chance. Sign my thesis or you will be destroyed!"

"Well, there was one thing I forgot to mention. Yes, I said it was foolproof, but that's only based on a theoretical model. If the assumptions –"

Kalmeth cast his fire spell on Keldar, who burned to the ground in a gigantic blaze of fire. "Now that that obstacle is out of the way, I can start executing my plan", he cackled evilly. "Then those puny University administrators can see who's really in charge."

FLASH FORWARD

_As you can see, the bad guy's evil plan_

_Was based upon laws of supply and demand._

_Of course it seemed like the plan was foolproof,_

_But was that correct? Was it foolproof in truth?_


	5. Temple of the Snake

**Chapter 5: The ****Temple**** of the Snake**

Artalax looked at the crystal ball. "I think the key here is that socket," he said. "Normally, when there's a magical item with a socket in it, you have to find something to fill the socket."

"But what could possibly fill it?" Tariel asked. "I mean, that's such a weird shape. I mean, it's not like a magical gem or anything could fit in it. The socket looks kind of like a power plug, but electricity hasn't been invented yet."

"Well, Tariel, I don't have much of a clue either. It must be a weird kind of gem or something. Maybe we should just forget this and move on."

"Yet again," Tariel muttered. "Zero for seven."

"What do you mean, zero for seven?"

"The magical items Prince Arthanis gives me. I spent all my life savings for his training course, then he keeps giving me magical items as quest rewards, but they never work."

FLASHBACK TO WHEN ONE OF PRINCE ARTHANIS' MAGICAL ITEMS DIDN'T WORK

"Okay," Tariel thought as he approached the dragon, "just remember what the Prince told me and I'll be fine. I've got this Dagger of Uber-Strength. If I'm in trouble, just plunge it into my leg and the magical energy will flow into my body and give me superhuman powers. That's all there is to it." Tariel rushed toward the dragon, blocking his fire attacks with his shield. However, the dragon managed to hit Tariel, sending him flying back in pain. Tariel withdrew the Dagger of Uber-Strength from its sheath and plunged it into his leg. Rather than feel stronger, all he felt was an excruciating pain in his leg that made him unable to move. HEEEEEEELLLLLLP! he yelled, and then blacked out.

_Later, back at __Altaria __Palace__..._

Tariel woke up and found Prince Arthanis looking at him. "I just wanted to inform you that the Dagger of Uber-Strength you gave me was completely useless,' Tariel said. "I hope you'll give me a refund or at least a better quest reward next time."

"I'm sorry the item didn't work," the Prince replied. "This is the first time it's been tested on humans. I mean, I'm trying to learn how to use magic for the good of the kingdom, and you have to start somewhere."

"So you're using me as a guinea pig!?"

"I was pretty sure it would work. I've tested it on monsters numerous times. When I stab a monster with it the monster gets all aggressive and attacks me. So I figured, in order for it to become so bold like that it must be getting stronger."

"Okay, fine. But I hope you'll give me some compensation."

"Well, since you didn't complete the quest, I can't give you a reward. But the rescue fees plus the medical bills will come to 500 gold pieces."

FLASH FORWARD

"Anyway, Artalax, a while back I got this scroll. It says, "The Gate to Carpathia is located at 1714.63 north by 6971.41 west. But it was so easy – there weren't any monsters guarding it. In all the adventuring books I read, there's always some complication, it's never that easy. This might be a trap."

"Well, it's the only clue we have to go on. Let's get to it!"

_Later, at 1714.63 north by 6971.41 west…_

Tariel and Artalax approached a large black temple. "This is supposed to be where the Gate is," Tariel said. They went into the temple cautiously, aware that there was probably a trap somewhere. But they got into the temple, even to the altar at the middle, without encountering a single trap or monster. "Are you sure this is the right place? I don't see a teleportation gate anywhere," Artalax said. Tariel looked at his MGPS (Magical Global Positioning System) unit. "According to this, this altar is directly at the designated coordinates, right to the nearest hundredth."

"You're sure the MGPS unit works, right? You didn't get that from Prince Arthanis, did you?"

"No, that was something I looted off a guy's corpse. But it's worked so far and I don't see why it would stop working now."

Artalax looked at his own MGPS unit. "I guess these are both in agreement, so it's probably not a problem with our devices. But given that it says the gate is in the same spot as the altar, the altar deserves a closer look."

Tariel prayed at the altar. "What deity serves this temple?" he boomed.

A voice boomed back from the heavens. "This is the Temple of the Snake. It is unaffiliated with any deities. To partake of the benefits of this temple, simply deposit the small sum of 200 gold pieces in the slot."

"This is the last 200 gold pieces I have. Now I'm completely broke." Tariel said, but deposited the money in the altar anyway. Immediately a slot opened on the altar, and a snakelike cord came out with an unusually shaped doodad on the end. "This is it!" they both exclaimed simultaneously. "The cord is what fits in the socket on our crystal ball!"

Tariel inserted the end of the cord into the socket, and waited to see what would happen. They peered into the crystal ball and this is what they saw:

LOADING … 0% COMPLETE

(several minutes later)

LOADING … 1% COMPLETE

(several more minutes later)

LOADING … 2% COMPLETE

(several more minutes later)

ERROR – OUT OF MEMORY

GET A BETTER CRYSTAL BALL

THIS ONE IS WAY OUT OF DATE

"Wow, Prince Arthanis is really amazing with his magical items," Tariel said. "He makes you think that they work, and then they seem like they might work, and then you think you figured out how to make them work – but you can always count on them not to work in the end. And if he said this one is the latest in magical technology, but now it says it's out of date…"

"But it does seem like we're on the right track. Maybe if we search around this temple we might find something more useful."

And so they searched in the darkest recesses of the temple, and … TRAP! A poison dart shot out from the wall, just barely missing the adventurers. "This is definitely the right track," Tariel said. "There are traps here, which is good." Eventually they found a crystal ball, apparently one that was dropped by another adventurer. They took it back up to the altar and plugged this one in.

"Show me the Gate to Carpathia," Tariel spoke into the crystal ball.

The crystal ball showed an image of a shimmering portal in the middle of a forest. There was apparently a road leading up to the portal, but there were no markers or anything that could tell him where it was.

"Give me directions to the Gate to Carpathia."

The crystal ball showed the following image:

WELCOME TO MAPQUEST!

FROM: Temple of the Snake #172

TO: Gate to Carpathia

ESTIMATED TIME: 17 days, 23 hours

TOTAL DISTANCE: 315.7 kilometers

ADVENTURING DIRECTIONS:

1. Leave the Temple of the Snake and turn RIGHT.

2. Turn LEFT onto the HIGHWAY OF DANGER at Town 142.

3. Leave the HIGHWAY OF DANGER at Town 283 and turn RIGHT.

4. Pass through the MOUNTAINS OF MALTREATMENT.

5. Enter the DUNGEON OF DESPAIR

6. Travel on until you reach the TRAIL OF TRIALS

7. Kill lots of MINDLESS ORCS and ZOMBIES and other ASSORTED CREATURES on the TRAIL OF TRIALS.

8. Enter the TOWN OF NARITAL and turn LEFT.

9. Go STRAIGHT until you reach the DESTINATION.

"This is getting weirder by the minute," Artalax commented. "Someone must know where this thing is. But nobody's telling us, except for this temple here, which really is weird. I've been a wizard for 40 years, but this definitely isn't like any magic I've ever seen."

_Are the directions for the excursion_

_Useful, or just a diversion?_

_What dangers will they face en route?_

_Will they find the Gate's whereabouts?_


	6. The Highway of Danger

**Chapter 6: The Highway of Danger**

_On the Highway of Danger, between Towns 216 and 217…___

            Tariel and Artalax were traveling along when they heard a screaming voice form up ahead. "Help me!" the voice cried. "We're being robbed! That guy is robbing our caravan!" Tariel rushed forward to help the victims, while Artalax stayed back ready to cast spells if necessary. When Tariel came to the caravan, he saw two people with arrows in them lying motionless on the ground, and a thief-looking guy stealing everything he could from the caravan. "Artalax, these people need a healing spell now! You help them, I'll deal with the robber."

"I'm a wizard, not a cleric. I only have offensive spells. You have your paladin healing spells." Artalax casted a powerful spell that froze the robber in place, and Tariel used his healing powers to help the wounded. After that was taken care of, Tariel confronted the robber.

"I am Tariel, of the elite Paladins of Altaria! You must cease your evil now! Stop robbing innocents or you will be smitten down where you stand!"

The robber replied, "Man, another group of adventurers acting all heroic. A man just can't make an honest living anymore."

"Honest living? You were robbing people!"

"Well I mean, for a perfectly good while I was making a fine honest living robbing everyone who came. Everything was completely aboveboard and legal. Never killed a person, just shot 'em once with the immobilization-enchanted arrow, then took everything they owned. But now that that no-good Prince Arthanis came to the throne, he's been training up all those adventurers so now wherever I go there's some heroic dude waiting to arrest me."

"Yes. In fact, Prince Arthanis trained me."

"But now not only are there a lot of adventurers, there are just no other robbers anymore. Used to have safety in numbers, you know? But since I'm the only one I really don't have a defense."

"Why are there so few robbers so fast?"

"Well, most people say it's because of all the new adventurers. Everyone likes our new prince, says he's made the roads safe and all. But I heard there's this Kalmeth guy going around, heard he's been giving bribes to evildoers to stop them evildoing. Says it's part of some evil plan."

"But if Kalmeth is evil, then why is he getting rid of the evildoers?"

"Don't know much about it, all I know is that at this point I can pretty much take whatever money comes along. At this rate in just a few weeks I'll probably starve to death, considering how hard it is to get any money to buy food. Needless to say the Kalmeth guy hasn't come to me yet, or I wouldn't be here."

"But where do all the robbers go if they stop robbing? I haven't heard of any reformed robbers or anything."

"I've heard through the grapevine that when the Kalmeth guy bribes 'em he takes them to this place called Carpathia. Don't know much about it though."

"Carpathia. Do you know anything about what's there or where it is?"

"It's through some magical teleport something-or-other, that's all I can tell you. Don't have a clue what's over there."

"So it seems you're not a good source of information," Tariel said, then turned to Artalax. "Artalax, should I continue interrogating the prisoner, or should I just execute him now?"

"You should probably give him some civil liberties first."

"Don't know what those are. But Prince Arthanis said that anyone who mentions them is probably a traitor. I'll just go back to interrogating him."

Tariel continued interrogating the robber. "Why have you done this? What justification have you for robbing innocents?"

"I said, it's the only way a man can make money anymore. I mean, I'm a thief character class, so that's what thieves do. Just trying to make a living, and then some rich adventurer comes up and spoils my fun. I'm going to be a Communist now, with all that's going on."

"What's that?"

"Well, I used to be a serf, couldn't really make a living there, then I was a peasant, couldn't make a living there either. It's all because of rich people like you. Every time a member of the proletariat tries to do something, some highfalutin bourgeoisie knight comes in and stops 'em. It's the same stuff over and over again. The rich oppressing the poor. The bourgeoisie oppressing the proletariat. I know they say they're all heroic and all, but they're really just selfish. All they care about are their experience points and levels and magic items, don't care anything about the poor independent thieves like me."

"You do realize that Prince Arthanis is recruiting thieves to act as tax collectors. You could put your talents to good use there."

"I said I don't want anything to do with Prince Arthanis. Don't know why everyone loves him, he's just the same as all of them – big rich guy who oppresses the proletariat all over the place. That's why he wants the tax collectors and all those adventurers everyone loves him for. I'm just going to be collecting taxes from more perfectly honest thieves like me, ain't any better than what I'm in now."

"So what do you think you are going to do?"

"I don't know. Right now just waiting for the Kalmeth guy, but maybe I might want to try to find Carpathia myself. There must be something good over there, what with all the thieves going there. On the other hand if they need a bribe to go there, might not be so good."

"If you want to, you can join our party. We're trying to find the Gate to Carpathia too. And while you're with us you can tell us more about this "Communism" of yours. We could use all the help we can get."

"That sounds like a good deal. I'll take it."

_Good and evil? Working together?_

_Has this happened before – ever?_

_The evil plan though – it sounds strange:_

_Is Kalmeth cunning, or just deranged?_


	7. Side Quests, Snide Quests

**Chapter 7: Side Quests, Snide Quests**

_The Highway of Danger, outside Town 277…_

            Tariel, Artalax, and Robari (the robber) continued their journey, passing town after identical town. "I wonder why they have to have all these identical towns,"       Tariel asked. "It certainly doesn't say in any of the adventuring books."

"It looks like this town up ahead is different," said Artalax. "Look at the sign."

The sign said: "WELCOME TO TOWN 277, HOME OF SIDEQUEST CENTRAL."

"Let's go there," Tariel suggested. "We can heal up and maybe pick up a few more experience points and gold pieces doing quests. There aren't that many quests around, hopefully this place will have some."

"That's fine with me, as long as them quests don't involve oppressing the proletariat," replied Robari. "We really need some money though. And hopefully we get to pick up one of them females too. Just havin' three male characters is gonna be mighty boring."

_At Sidequest Central…___

            The three adventurers entered the Sidequest Central building. "Okay everyone, the auction's going to start in just a few minutes!," said a booming voice. "The bidding's going to be competitive tonight, only two quests to bid on!" The adventurers rushed around, trying to find someone who could explain what was going on, since they had never heard of an auction house for quests.

"Okay, let me explain to you how this works. When someone needs a quest done, they put it up for auction, and adventurers can bid for it."

"But don't the people offering the quests pay the adventurers, in the form of the quest rewards, not the other way around? That's the whole point."

"You don't understand. You bid for how much you're willing to do it for. Lowest bidder wins. That way the people who want the quests done can do it for cheaper, since there are lots of adventurers who want to do it. It's supply and demand. Be quiet, the auction's about to start."

The auctioneer began describing the first quest. "The first quest is to kill all the monsters in the Cave of Cravercal, located right here on this map. We think there should be only a few monsters here, most of them levels five through six, but there might be a boss character who's tougher."

"Two hundred gold pieces!" someone yelled. "I'll do the quest for a reward of two hundred gold pieces!"

"One hundred ninety!"

"One hundred seventy-five!"

"One hundred fifty!"

Tariel shouted out his bid: "I'll do it for zero gold pieces! That's right, for free!"

"I guess that guy over there wins it," said the auctioneer. "The guy who wanted it is getting a pretty good deal. Now, on to the next quest…"

"This second and final quest in tonight's lineup comes from Prince Arthanis himself. His sister, or was it his wife – Princess Talia - has been kidnapped by a dragon located in a cave right here on this map. In order to claim the reward you have to kill the dragon and rescue Princess Talia. Be advised the dragon is not known to have any stashes of gold, so take this into account and make sure you bid high. Anyone want to bid? Anyone want to bid?"

All the adventurers in attendance, however, had rushed out of the auction house as soon as the location of the dragon's cave was announced. All the adventurers, including Tariel and his party, rushed toward the cave, hoping to beat out the other adventurers in the race to rescue and marry the princess. They didn't need gold, just the fame and experience points the Princess would give provided plenty of incentive.

_Many adventurers would risk their life_

_But only one can have the Princess as his wife._

_She's coveted by heroes across the land:_

_I guess you could say it's supply and demand._


	8. Married By Altaria

**Chapter 8: Married By Altaria**

_In __Altaria __Palace__…___

The Royal Advisor rushed into Prince Arthanis's throne room. "What do you think you're doing, giving away where Princess Talia is imprisoned?! Do you realize what's going to happen?"

"I thought that's what I was supposed to do," Arthanis replied. "It's in all the books. You tell the hero where the princess is imprisoned, the hero rescues the princess, then they get married and live happily ever after, right? And how did you expect me to have Talia rescued if I keep it a secret where she is?"

"What I mean is, Prince Arthanis, every adventurer in the land wants to marry the Princess. If you just give it out like that, they'll be a lot of adventurers rushing toward that same cave. And you know what happens when there are lots of people competing for one mate."

"First of all, I gave the information to Sidequest Central. They said that they do a competitive bidding system, where they find the person who's willing to do the quest for the least amount of money, then they bill me for the reward, plus a service fee so that they can make money, once the quest is done. I figured someone would be willing to do it for a low reward, so that was the cheapest way of getting the Princess rescued. And you still only have one person – the lowest bidder – doing the quest."

"You forgot something, though. You do realize that gold isn't the only thing the adventurers care about. They also care about other things, like experience points. And that Princess has to be worth at least 75,000 experience points to whoever rescues her. So even without the reward, there's still a lot of competition. And you know what happens when there's competition for a mate like that?"

"I don't know, what?"

"Tune your crystal ball to channel 37 and you'll see."

_Back outside the cave where Princess Talia was being held…___

Hundreds of adventurers sat on hastily assembled bleachers overlooking a central field where the trial was to take place. All had prepared for this competition, for this was when they would finally have the chance at getting the princess of their dreams. Magical scrying cameras surrounded the arena, watching every move of the contestants.Who would win?

The host of the competition walked out onto the middle of the field and began his introduction. "Okay everyone, heroes, monsters, villains, and 1st-level civilians across the land, you're watching our new special event, _Married by Altaria_! In this show, you'll have the opportunity to watch as our heroes battle it out against a fierce dragon for the right to marry Princess Talia and perhaps become the next Prince of Altaria! The heroes will battle it out in turn, and once one hero is killed or incapacitated the next one can step up. We have advanced medical facilities, so we hope nobody's going to get hurt."

All the scrying cameras turned to look at the medical tent. Inside the medical tent there was a hose connected to a large drum labeled "MAGICAL HEALING POTION FLUID ONLY. CAPACITY 500 GALLONS."

"So, anyway, I haven't finished explaining the rules. In this show, just you can influence the outcome from your own home! How, you ask? Well, we've made a special sponsorship deal with Minerva, our glorious Goddess of Combat. During the show, you can pray to Minerva to ask her to shift the battle a certain way. Whichever side gets the most votes is the one Minerva will support, so vote early and often! Now, our first contestant is…"

Tariel, Artalax, and Robari were near the back of the line. They observed the first contestant fight, and saw that he was doing a lot of damage to the dragon. "At this rate, he's going to kill the dragon and we won't even have a chance!" "Actually, no," Artalax replied. "Even the lowest level dragons have 3,000 hit points at least."

"What do you mean, hit points?"

"Hit points. They determine how hard a monster is to kill. Each time you're hit, you lose some, and if you get down to zero you're incapacitated. Didn't the Prince tell you about that? I mean, any adventurer has to know about combat stuff like this."

"No. I said, all the Prince did was he gave me the tutorial quests, then told me to read all the books. There wasn't anything about hit points or anything. Oh, and he also gave me all the magical items that don't work. Wasn't much of a training course if you ask me, it was mostly just a rip-off."

Tariel opened his prayer book and flipped through it frantically. "I'm trying to look for instructions on how to pray to Minerva," he said. "We have to influence the outcome or we're never going to win. Even if we can't influence the outcome at least we could ask her for combat tips, so in case it ever gets to us we'll still have a better chance of winning. " Eventually he found the right section in the book and began to pray.

"I beseech to you, glorious Minerva…"

A voice came down from the heavens that only Tariel could hear. "Thank you for praying to the Minerva Corporation. All our service representatives are unavailable right now. Your prayer is important to us, so please stay on the line and a representative will be with you as soon as possible."

"What did she say, Tariel?", asked Artalax.

"Nothing. I can't get through to a human being. I mean, of course I can't get through to a human being, up there they aren't human. But I can't even get through to an angel or anything. You'd think that if they're near-omnipotent at least they would have better customer service."

"But we don't need him, Tariel. Remember what I said earlier about hit points? We can—"

The dragon blasted a huge blast of fire at the first contestant, smashing him to the ground and completely burning him. The host spoke: "Well, it looks like the first contestant is down and out. Can he move?"

The contestant tried to move, but couldn't. "Help me! The fire – I can't move!"

"He can't move. Initiate emergency medical procedures."

The medics in the medical tent sprung into action. They aimed the hose at the injured hero and activated it, blasting the hero with a huge blast of pure healing fluid. However, the contestant was so covered in plate mail armor that none of the healing fluid actually contacted him. The dragon fired another blast and he died.

"Now that wasn't as we expected. Of course, if this hero had read any of the adventuring books that we all know Prince Arthanis loves to give out, he would have realized that every piece of armor you wear decreases your performance in combat. I mean, just look, all the faceless bad guys wear lots of armor, but they get killed easily. If this person was wearing less armor, he might have been able to get healed. Now, on to the next contestant…"

Artalax explained his plan. "Okay, what we have to do is change our position in line. But don't go up to the front right now. Wait until he's down to low hit points, then go in and finish him off. That's the key to winning." And so they waited until a few people went, so that the dragon was down to only 20 out of 3,000 hit points. Then Tariel rushed into combat and finished the dragon off, winning the competition.

"Wow, that last contestant killed the dragon really fast. Clearly Minerva must be on his side. So we have a winner: Tariel will soon be Princess Talia's new husband, and he might even succeed Prince Arthanis as the ruler of Altaria!"

_Though Tariel's won the competition,_

_Talia__ has her inhibitions._

_To win her, there's another quest:_

_Will Tariel complete this test?_


	9. Civil Liberties

**Chapter 9: Civil Liberties**

            After winning the contest, Tariel wanted to get married to Princess Talia right then and there, but Talia had other plans. She rushed them away from all the commotion and took refuge in an out-of-the way hiding spot behind a large rock.

"What is this for, Princess Talia? I won the contest, don't I get married to you now and we get to live happily ever after? At least that's how it went in all the books," Tariel asked.

"No. I know you beat the dragon, but that isn't enough. That just shows your combat abilities. Before I can marry you I have to see you as a whole person."

"Okay, what is it you would have me do?"

"This is actually the easy part. All you have to do is get a quest of your choice and do it, with me tagging along and watching. Then I'll evaluate you and decide whether to marry you."

"What if you decide not to marry me?"

"Well, then I'll go find another cave and wait until another hero comes to rescue me, I guess. That's how monarchical succession works in this kingdom: the princess gets imprisoned, then the first person to rescue him gets to be the new ruler. It's worked for the past five dynasties, it will work fine for this one as well."

"This is strange. This is the first time I've gotten a job performance review from a princess. But we can go on the quest right now. I have a quest right here. In fact, just to prove that I'm not a selfish bastard who cares only about gold, I agreed to take on the quest for free. No reward at all. And also, I have two other people that I'm traveling with. One is a mage, the other is a thief. So far we've made a good team."

_Later, at the __Cave__ of __Clavercal__…___

The party arrived at the mouth of the cave, and Tariel explained the mission. "We've got to infiltrate this cave and kill all the monsters in it. Also, there's probably going to be a main boss enemy, we've got to kill that too." After hearing this, Talia withdrew a small amulet from her pack and placed it around her neck.

"What is that," Tariel asked.

"Oh, nothing. That's just a good luck charm that I wear whenever I'm going into combat. Makes me feel more secure."

Artalax walked over to Tariel and whispered in his ear: "I'm not so sure. To me that looks like a locator beacon, which means that other people might know where we are. You might want to be careful."

So they went into the cave, killing lots of monsters. Throughout the monster killing process, Princess Talia was becoming repulsed by all the killing.

"Are you sure this is the mission?", she asked. "You're supposed to be heroic, yet all you do is go around killing innocent wildlife and monsters?"

"Yes, of course we are. And besides, these guys aren't innocent. They have an evil mastermind, I know he's here somewhere. It said so in the quest description."

So they continued exploring the cave until eventually they found the room where the main boss was. Princess Talia was uncomfortable by the killing, so she stayed outside the room while everyone else went in. While she was outside, she activated her amulet (which was, in fact, a locator beacon).

_Inside the Main Boss Room…___

Tariel stepped forward to confront the Main Boss. "I am Tariel, a member of the elite Paladins of Altaria! Your evil activities shall go on no longer! Prepare to be smited!"

"What evil activities?" the Main Boss replied. "I have done nothing wrong! What proof have you for your accusations?"

"Yeah, he's right, Tariel," Robari added. "You better stop oppressing the proletariat like you're doing now."

Tariel continued: "Stop trying to evade the question! I know what you are doing here, and you are just trying to hide it! Answer me or I will smite you!"

"What do you think I am doing here?"

"Answer the question! Are you now, or have you ever, been a member of the Necromancers' Party? Have you attended any meetings of the Necromancers' Party?"

"No, I'm just –"

"You have had your chance! I will smite you!"

Tariel rushed at the Main Boss with his sword drawn and attacked. The first blow came down so hard that it completely destroyed the Main Boss's shield and knocked him to the ground. Tariel continued attacking, and the Main Boss parried a few blows but it was clear that Tariel was going to win. Tariel eventually knocked the sword completely out of the Main Boss's hand and put his own sword near the Main Boss's throat, ready to deliver the fatal blow. But just then, he heard a voice scream from back near the entrance to the room.

"Stop right there!"

"Who are you and why are you here?" Tariel asked, while still holding his sword close to the Main Boss's throat.

"We're lawyers with the ACLU. Altarian Civil Liberties Union. We've got a report of some extrajudicial killing around here, and we thought we better investigate."

"I though he was evil, so I decided to kill him. And besides, that was the quest objective."

"Do you have an arrest warrant for him? You can't just go around killing people without getting permission from a court."

"I didn't know that. It wasn't in any of the books Prince Arthanis gave me. In all the books, the hero just goes out and kills the bad guys."

"You do now. Come with us. You will appear in court tomorrow. There you will have an opportunity to defend your actions."

_The next day, in the courtroom…_

            The trial progressed quickly, mostly because Tariel and his party had little to say in their defense. They had been conspiring to kill someone who had done them no harm, no doubt about it. There was nothing more to do than to wait for the sentence.

"I understand that you may not have understood the implications of what you were doing," said the judge. "Therefore, it is not our intention to punish you, but rather to teach you a lesson. You will be sentenced to spend one week in Narital Prison. There you will see what it is like to be tortured and threatened with death. Hopefully that will discourage you from attempting such actions again. Be warned, if we catch you violating civil liberties again the punishment will be more severe."

While the adventurers were being transported to the prison, they were excited at the prospect of eventually finding the Gate to Carpathia. "This is really cool," said Tariel. "We don't even have to brave all the dangers along the way becausewe're being transported there by armed guards. And according to the directions, Narital is only a few miles from the Gate. We're definitely going to solve this mystery."

_"Respect civil liberties?"_

_"Why should we? They're enemies?"_

_Unless you're Ashcroft, this position_

_Is going to land you in prison.___

[Notes to non-U.S. readers:

- In real life, "ACLU" stands for American Civil Liberties Union, a nonprofit organization that uses legal means such as lawsuits to protect civil liberties.

- The "Ashcroft" mentioned in the rhyme at the end refers to John Ashcroft, the U.S. Attorney General under George W. Bush, who has been criticized for curtailing civil liberties in an effort to fight terrorism.

]


	10. Prison Derision

**Chapter 10: Prison Derision**

_Later, at Narital Prison…_

            Tariel could not help but think that the Princess was not all she was cracked up to be, seeing as she sabotaged his effort to complete the quest. Tariel told Princess Talia, "You're a traitor! You're obviously an enemy of this kingdom. You prevented me from killing the Evil Bad Guy at the end. And now we get to this, this prison. It might turn out that I don't want to marry you at all, if you keep messing up our quests. I mean, I didn't even get the 5,000 experience point quest completion bonus."

Talia replied, "This just proves my point. You adventurers are so concerned about your levels and experience points that you don't care about civil liberties at all. You just want to kill them, as fast as you can. I had hope that you weren't that kind of hero, but I wanted to see you in action before I made a commitment. I didn't want to marry and then divorce, because that's a 15 percent experience point penalty."

Tariel was unfazed by Talia's accusations. "See, you care just as much about experience points as I do. So quit your whining about "civil liberties." I mean, the bad guy wasn't innocent anyway. I know, I didn't give them a right to an attorney and I didn't tell them what they were accused of, but they weren't criminals, they were enemy combatants. Just remember what Prince Arthanis always tells us: you're either with us or you're with the Evil Nonhuman Forces Of Evil, and if you don't agree with his agenda then you're unpatriotic."

Robari jumped in, agreeing with Talia's viewpoint. "See, I told you those adventurers were good-for-nothing scum. They don't care about the people, they don't care about the proletariat, all they care about is their loot. Maybe, Princess Talia, someday you can join me in my Communist crusade and we can unite all the downtrodden, oppressed monsters and we can rise up and overthrow the ruling class!"

_Later…_

As part of the party's rehabilitation, they were required to witness Narital Prison's torture chambers in action, so they can see how bad torture can get. They peered into one of the torture chambers and observed a human stretched out on the rack, begging for mercy.

"Please! HELP me! STOP it – ARRGGHHGH!"

So far, this was just standard torture stuff, But soon it started to get interesting.

"I told you, Carpathia is an adventurer's paradise! I gave you the information! Now let me out. squeak stretch YYYAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!"

Tariel asked the guard on duty what kind of information they were trying to extract. "In this wing are all the people that come through the Gate to Carpathia. I mean, we're trying to figure out what's behind there, but nobody we send through comes back, but sometimes people from Carpathia come through this way, so what better way to find out than by asking them?"

"But why do you have to torture them?"

"We've tried asking them nicely. But they keep saying the same things. They say it's an adventurer's paradise. But it has to be incredibly dangerous, because nobody who has entered has ever returned, so they must be either getting killed or captured and put to work for some evil scheme."

Meanwhil,e, the interrogation was continuing:

"ARRGHHH! Okay, fine! You can buy 4 tickets for the price of 3! Save more with super deals – YOWWWWW!"

"Answer the question! What evil dwells within the depths of Carpathia?"

"I told you! We have all kinds of monsters! Levels 1-50 and more on the way! And plenty of –AAAAAHHHH"

"We know there are monsters! We want to know what evil scheme the monsters are being used for!"

"There's no evil scheme! We just want to create a safe and –YYEEOOOWW – healthy environment for adventurers – AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!"

"I know you are lying! Tell the truth or the torture will continue!"

"Okay! For a limited time only you can get 25 percent off on all magical items – AARRGGH – YOWWWW – and here in Carpathia we have the latest line of Heal-O-Aid Mark VI Super Strength Healing Potions at all the general stores – AAYYYOOOWW – we've been rated number one –AAYYYYYYYAAARRRGHHHHH!!!!"

"It doesn't look like we'll get any more information out of this person. But we've got several other people who have already come through the portal. We can torture them, too."

"You say that nobody comes back once they go through," Princess Talia said. "But maybe they're not coming back because they don't want to be captured and tortured like this."

"That's not a problem," said the guard, producing a list of names. "We keep a record of everybody who has gone through. If someone who we sent through returned, we would know he's one of us and not a Carpathian, so that's not a problem."

"I see there's several dozen names on this list," said Tariel. "Have you sent anyone through that has telepathic powers? That might be useful because they could use there telepathy to communicate back."

"Actually, we did send one through, her name was Teletha. She told us, though, that because of the long distances involved she would only be able to send one message back. It was something about "45 gold pieces per minute". We did get the telepathic message, and it says, that yes, there was an evil scheme going on."

_Meanwhile, somewhere in Carpathia…_

_Teletha__ was trying to telepathically communicate with her homeland when she said,_

_"Come to Carpathia. It's like an XP machine."_

_But with all the static on the line, what they heard was:_

_"Run from Carpathia. There's an evil scheme."_

_It turned out it was all just a case of bad telepathy._

_Get the Sprint TPS Free & Clear Plan from Telepathic Communications today!"_

            Eventually, the heroes were released from prison and made their way toward the Gate to Carpathia, the previous events only heightening the mystery as to what lay beyond. Was Carpathia really an adventurer's paradise? But if so, then why wasn't anyone coming back to tell the tale? Or were those who passed through the portal being trapped there forever, perhaps by some malicious being bent on world domination? But if that was the case, then how could he be stopped if nobody was strong enough to escape his clutches? And who was this "Kalmeth" that Robari had mentioned? Could he be involved in some way? As Tariel, Artalax, Princess Talia, and Robari stepped through the portal, none knew the truth behind the mystery but they would find out soon enough…

_And so the portal has been found,_

_But on the other side, will evil abound?_

_Does this place deserve its legends?_

_Is it hell – or is it heaven?_


	11. The Gatekeeper

**Chapter 11: The Gatekeeper**

After stepping into the portal, the heroes found themselves propelled through a long tunnel of swirling purple light. They eventually came out on the other end of the portal. They tried to look around but before they could a large robed figure stepped in front of them, blocking their view.

"You may not pass!", it said.

"Who are you?" asked Tariel. "And why can't we go through?"

"I am the Gatekeeper. You may not pass, not without your tickets."

Artalax whispered in Tariel's ear. "This looks like the bad guy," he said.

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, he's big, and he's blocking our way, and we can't get by him without defeating him, so I guess…"

Tariel turned back to the Gatekeeper. "I am Tariel, of the elite Paladins of Altaria! Your evil activities will go on no longer! Prepare to face the, uh, um – I forgot my line. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to defeat you."

The Gatekeeper thrust his staff down on the ground, creating a virtually impenetrable shield around him. "Where do you think you come from? You can't just get in for free! You have to buy a ticket just like everyone else."

"You were right," said Robari. "He is evil. You just saw? He wants you to pay him money. That means he's a capitalist pig!"

"Don't call me a capitalist pig," said the Gatekeeper. "Where do you think the money to operate these portals comes from? Did you think that some ancient wizard just creates the portal in some abandoned area and just leaves it alone forever?"

"Well, yes, that's what we thought," said Tariel. "I mean, that's how it was in all the books…"

"Well, whoever wrote those books must have thought the ancient wizards were very sloppy, just ripping holes in the fabric of space-time and then leaving them there. But I'm telling you, these are really heavy-duty portals we've got here. Level 16 teleportation spell, maximum capacity 200 people per hour. These things take a lot of magical energy to maintain, and someone's got to pay for it."

"How much does a ticket cost?"

"Well, a ticket costs 1,000 gold pieces each, but we're having a special deal. Buy three, get one free. So that will be three thousand for the four of you."

"We don't have any money at all. We're all broke."

"Well, that's no problem. You can earn your way in. Just – like – THIS!"

The Gatekeeper unleashed a blast of magical energy from his fingertips, teleporting the four adventurers away to an unknown location. They got up and looked around. It was just one flat piece of land, as far as the eye could see. "I told you he was a capitalist pig!" said Robari. "He's exploiting the working class! And we're the working class! Now we can't make any money and we're left here to starve!"

Tariel took out his Magical Global Positioning System device. It said "ERROR – NO SIGNAL." "Now we're screwed," said Tariel. "I guess this is what happens when you rely too much on magical technology. But I thought this was the one thing that would always work. However many non-working magical items the Prince gave me, however many times I got waylaid by monsters twice my level, whenever my life was in upheaval, whatever happened in the world, whenever I needed someone or something to save my life, the reliability of the MGPS was the one thing that was always constant."

"Don't forget the First Rule of Adventuring," Artalax said.

"What's that?"

"The First Rule of Adventuring: Unnecessary scenes with excessive personal reflection serve only to delay the adventurer in accomplishing his goals and give the bad guys time to do their evil deeds. Therefore, unnecessary scenes with excessive personal reflection are redundant, unnecessary, unneeded, useless, and should be eliminated."

"Oh, yeah, that one. So do you have any idea where we are?"

"No, but if you let me use my magical powers I think I might be able to find out."

Artalax concentrated on the space around him. He knew that since the MGPS was not receiving a signal, it was likely that they had been transported to an area removed from normal space-time. He tried to sense the fabric of space to determine whether it was different from normal. When he did, though, he was shocked by what he found.

"There are transient spatial vortices forming at multiple locations!", Artalax shouted to the group. "Get ready for –"

"This isn't Star Trek," replied Tariel. "Please speak in English."

"Tariel, uh – behind you!"

Tariel turned around and saw a large hobgoblin materialize out of thin air. He quickly thrust his sword through it and killed it. He then searched its corpse, finding three gold pieces on it.

"3 gold pieces down, 2,997 more to go," said Tariel. "You still wonder, though, why all monsters carry gold on them. It's perfectly convenient for us adventurers, since we get money. But you'd think the monsters would wise up now that they know that we kill them for the gold. I mean, the way it is now, it's almost as if the monsters were just put there specifically for adventurers to –"

"Another one! Behind you!"

SEVERAL HOURS LATER

The adventurers had been fighting almost continuously for the past several hours. It was exciting because the monsters came constantly, so there was not a long wait between monsters and romantic love scenes were kept to a minimum. In just a few hours they had acquired all the money they needed for the tickets, and then some. "It's as if these monsters were being teleported in specifically for us to kill," said Princess Talia. "Are you sure this is the ethical thing to do? These monsters have done nothing wrong. We can't kill them just because we need money. That would be murder. It's like what Robari said, except this time we're the capitalist pigs and the monsters are the working class. Maybe we need to take a more holistic approach."

"What do you mean, more holistic approach," Tariel said as he chopped an orc's head off. "There really isn't a whole lot of holistic stuff to do when you're out in the middle of nowhere like this and the only other living things are monsters. But you are right that maybe we should look for a way out of here."

A voice boomed from above. "You have done well, young adventurers. You seem to have passed the tests. Now you will be permitted to enter."

The adventurers got teleported back to the Gatekeeper. They gave the Gatekeeper 3,000 gold pieces for the tickets, and they still had plenty left over.

"Is this your frist visit to Carpathia?", asked the Gatekeeper

"Yes, said Tariel.

"Then you should probably visit the Welcome Center first, so you can buy the equipment that you will need in your quests." The Gatekeeper stepped aside, letting the heroes pass. "Welcome to the Adventurer's Paradise."


	12. The Travails of Technology

**Chapter 12: The Travails of Technology**

After the Gatekeeper let them pass, they poked around and were amazed by what they saw. They were in a gigantic building, with several portals just like the one they had come through, all leading to different places. There were lots of people coming into and out of the portals. "This place is huge. This must be some sort of teleportation hub," Artalax said. The adventurers walked thorough the long hallway, passing many more portals, until finally they came to the Welcome Center. "Be on your guard," Tariel warned. "We don't know what's going on. This might be a trap."

Tariel approached the attendant at the Welcome Center cautiously. "Hello. Where am I?", Tariel said.

"Hello. Welcome to Carpathia, also known as the Adventurer's Paradise, rated number one kingdom for heroes by _Adventurers' Quarterly_ for the past ten straight years," said the attendant. "How may I help you?"

"Probably the first thing we could use is a map."

"Are you from Altaria?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Only in Altaria would they use such primitive technology. Old-fashioned maps were obsolete a long time ago."

"Obsolete? What was wrong with them?"

"Well, first of all, paper maps tend to be ancient and hidden away in the lower levels of dark dungeons," the attendant explained. "Also, very often adventurers would complain that even after they found the map, it would be written in a foreign language so they would have to get it translated even before it would be of any use."

"Well, yes, I knew that maps were hard to use. But you say they're obsolete? What do you use instead?"

"We haven't used a paper map in decades. Look at this." The attendant brought out a large handheld device. It looked like an MGPS unit, except that it was much bigger and had several buttons at the bottom. The attendant pushed one of them and a map-like image appeared on the display.

"Look at this. A complete world map is integrated with the global positioning device. It shows you not only your coordinates but also provides a map of your surroundings. You can zoom the map in and out so you can see as much as you want. You'll never need a clumsy paper map again!"

"Now that's useful. How much does –"

"Wait, there's more. The device has a built-in proximity radar." He pushed a button and lots of dots popped up on the screen. "250 meter range, friend-or-foe recognition capability. Not only will you never get lost, you'll never be snuck up on from behind again!"

"I don't understand this. So you have all this technology and you still haven't even developed electricity yet?"

"You're right."

"But how can that be?"

"I don't know either. These just come in unmarked boxes, we take them out and sell them to you. I have no idea how they work. Oh, and did I forget to tell you about the new communication feature?"

"Communication feature?"

"Yes. You can talk to anyone else in Carpathia using the handy telecommunications interface. Just type in the name of the person you want to talk to, then talk! Very easy to use. And the cost per minute is much lower than for standard telepathy."

Tariel bought four of the devices, one for each person in the group. "These do seem to be really useful," Artalax said. "Given that over 93 of the average adventurer's time is spent outside of a monster infested area, anything that lets you find the monsters more quickly will really make us more efficient."

"Efficiency. That's all you adventurers seem to care about," said Princess Talia. "Just who can kill the monsters the fastest. We haven't even had one romantic love scene during the entire time I've been with you."

"What's the point of romantic love scenes?" asked Tariel. "They're always very inane, unbelievably slow, and outright boring."

"I like them," said Talia. "I, fore one, would consider it boring to go around fighting monsters all the time."

"Well, it's no sense arguing about it now," said Tariel. "We have to figure out why nobody who has come here has ever returned. So let's start exploring."

"Okay," said Talia, "but please promise me we will get a romantic love scene in here somewhere."


	13. A Statistical Sign

**Chapter 13: A Statistical Sign**

Tariel, Artalax, Talia, and Robari stepped outside the doors of the teleportation hub. They saw a gigantic city, filled with huge buildings as far as the eye could see. Many of the buildings appeared to be several stories high, although on closer inspection it was obvious that the windows above the first story weren't really windows at all: rather, the walls were simply texture-mapped surfaces designed to give the illusion of embedded windows.

"So, this is Carpathia City," said Tariel. "Let's see what evil lurks here."

Robari said, "Well, this city was probably built for the benefit of greedy capitalists by exploiting the working poor, thus contributing to economic injustices within –", but Tariel cut him off.

"Can you just shut up? I'm telling you, every time you mention greedy capitalists I'm going to make you pay me ten gold pieces. Now shut your mouth so we can get on with this mission."

"You just proved my point," said Robari. "Now you're the greedy capitalist trying to extort money out of me and limit my freedom of expression. I'm telling you, if there's ever going to be any progress…" He trailed off.

"Look. I think we just found our first clue," said Artalax. "Look over there."

They all turned to look at a sign:

WELCOME TO CARPATHIA

THE ADVENTURERS' PARADISE

Total Immigration: 1,817,243

Immigration This Year: 28,914

…

"So, this conspiracy's more widespread than we thought. Whatever evil scheme's going on here, they've certainly captured a lot of people.", Artalax said.

"Can't we just go home now," replied Talia. "I never asked to be on this mission in the first place. And look. Almost two million people came here and it doesn't say anything about them returning, so they must have all been captured. What makes you think we'll be any different?"

"Have you even read any of the books?", replied Tariel. "Look. We're the main characters, so we're going to survive. All those other ones are extras, so they don't count. But the main characters always triumph, even against impossible odds. And by the way, look at what's below that on the sign."

…

Adventurer Statistics This Year

Experience Points Gained: 143,689,372,400

Quests Completed: 32,931,420

Monsters Defeated: 596,880,741

"So you mean that adventurers here have defeated over half a billion monsters just since the beginning of this year?", asked Artalax. He had already looked at the map on his new MGPS unit, so he knew about how big the kingdom of Carpathia was. "I didn't think an ecosystem of this size could even support anywhere near that many monsters. There must be something fishy going on."

"Can we just get out of here as soon as possible," asked Talia. "I don't want to be in a place where there's that much killing."

"What do you mean, leave? Leave right now? We just got here! We haven't even started our mission yet," said Tariel. "And besides, we're broke. We don't have enough money for the ticket back even we wanted to go."

"Okay, fine. Just make this quick. We make enough money for the ticket back, we go back to Prince Arthanis, we get married, we become heirs to the throne, we live happily ever after. Just like in all the books."

"That's a deal, just under one condition."

"What's the condition?"

"We have to finish our mission first."

"That's just like you, Tariel. Mission, mission, mission. You have no time for anything else. Not even a romantic love scene."

"Okay, here's the deal, Talia. You stick with me until the mission is accomplished, and I'll promise to give you a romantic love scene when the time comes. Is that a fair deal?"

"Can you be more specific? What exactly do you mean by "when the time comes"?

"Let's just do this. If, let's say, there's a sign from Heaven, then we'll have a romantic love scene."

And so the adventurers marched forward into Carpathia City, looking for more clues. But there was one thing they missed: beneath all the rows of changing statistics on the Welcome sign, a graffito was scribbled at the bottom:

ACTUAL HEROISM: 0

STOP THE MURDER

MONSTER LIBERATION FRONT

to be continued…


	14. Reconnaissance

**Chapter 14: Reconnaissance**

"Okay, we have to get some intelligence on the enemy," said Tariel. "First things first, we should probably find a tavern. That's where all the quests are." Although the city was several kilometers across, it was easy to find the tavern because it was clearly marked on the heroes' new MGPS unit. When they got to the tavern they saw the following sign:

Welcome to the Dancing Donkey

Carpathia City's Largest Tavern

Over 10,000 Quests Per Day

NEW! Now a Wireless Hot Spot 

"What's a wireless hot spot?," Tariel thought as he walked into the tavern. When he got in, he saw a tavern bigger than anything he had ever seen before. There were hundreds of customers milling about. He noticed that many of the customers had their own crystal balls similar to the one he used at the Temple of the Snake, except that they seemed to work without needing to be connected to anything. He approached the bartender for more information.

"Hello, brave adventurer," said the bartender. "I'm Joe. Are you here for a drink? Or are you looking for ... employment?"

"Yes. I want to know if you have any quests. At lest I think this is where you go to get quests…"

Joe turned around and shouted to someone in the back."Hey, Cliff, you better come over here. I think we have another Altarian in the house."

"Okay, look, I know we Altarians are technologically inferior," Tariel said. "I figured that out about fifteen seconds after I arrived. You people don't have to keep rubbing it in our face everywhere we go."

Cliff came out of the back room. "Let me guess: You're about to tell me that quests are obsolets, aren't you, Cliff?"

"Of course not. I was just surprised that you were asking Joe over here for a quest. Didn't you see the sign outside that says we're a wireless hot spot?"

"Yes, I saw that, but I didn't know what it meant."

"Okay. Just like I thought, you are technologically inferior. Okay, here's how it works. If you have one of these wireless-enabled crystal ball devices, you can link up to the network and download quest updates automatically. It's a lot more efficient than the traditional method."

Tariel looked at the crystal ball Cliff handed him, and spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to operate it. Eventually, he found a quest that he liked: to retrieve a crystal of enormous power from an abandoned cave. "Okay, I found a quest I want. Now what?"

"Now you can upload the quest coordinates to your MGPS device. It can automatically give you directions to the quest site. You'll never get lost again!"

Tariel walked out of the tavern and rejoined his companions outside. "Okay, what did you find out?", Artalax asked.

"Here's what I found. If you thought our new MGPS devices were technologically advanced, just wait until you see this."

"What is it?"

"Not much. Just a complete automation of the entire quest-searching procedure. You just push a few buttons, and then it automatically tells you where to go."

"Wait a second. So you mean you don't have to waste time uncovering ancient prophecies and deciphering difficult-to-read maps to find out where to gou; you can just get right to the action?"

"That's what it looked like to me."

"Well, considering that over 96 percent of our time up until now has been spent either looking for a quest or figuring out which direction to go so we would maybe be in the somewhat-near vicinity of the bad guys, I would say that this represents a major step forward in helping us do more to fight evil."

Princess Talia interrupted. "Good. So does this mean we can do the quest now? I really want to finish this mission so we can head home."

"We're nowhere near close to that," Tariel said. "Remember, nobody who has entered here has ever returned so far. We don't know where the danger is, so we have to be careful."

"I agree," said Artalax. "But I think we'll be safe as long as we stay within the city limits. We should probably get more information before we venture farther out."

"Okay, mayber the first thing we should do is go to the royal palace. That's normally a good place to start. We might find some information there."

_Later, just outside __Carpathia__Palace__…_

"What is this," Tariel asked as he approached the palace. He was not referring to the palace itself; rather, he was referring to the wall of pink light that separated them from the palace. Just in front of the wall was a sign:

You Are Now Leaving Carpathia City

DANGER: Monsters May Attack You Beyond This Point

Artalax looked at the built-in map on his MGPS unit. "It says here that this is the boundary perimeter defense shield. According to the map, it encloses the whole city."

Tariel put his hand through the shield wall. It went through and he barely felt anything. He then walked through the shield, then back the other way. "This isn't much of a shield," he said. "I can walk straight through it."

"All I know is that on the map it says "boundary perimeter defense shield". That's all it says."

"First of all," replied Tariel, "that name certainly seems redundant. I mean. They could easily have cut it down to two words. But more importantly, are you saying that the palace lies on the outside of the shield?"

"That's what it looks like."

"But why? You'd think that if they just moved it to the inside it would be a lot safer. I mean, I would think that palace is the first thing they would want to protect. I'm a little bit suspicious."

"Okay. Just like you said before, we never know whether it might be a trap. We have to proceed carefully. Now how do we get inside?"

Robari stood at the base of one of the side walls and shot a rope up to the roof of the palace. He started to climb up the rope. He eventually got to a set of windows below the roof, but when he put his hand on one to open it he found that the window was completely flat, with nowhere to grab on at all. It was as if a fake window was simply painted onto the surface of the wall.

"This doesn't work," Robari screamed down. "It's a fake window."

"Just what I suspected," remarked Artalax. "These are all just texture-mapped surfaces. There probably isn't a single real window in all of Carpathia City. And by the way, why are we sneaking in? Why can't we just go in through the main entrance?"

"You know about the stability of these foreign governments," Tariel answered. "There could be a coup at any moment. We have to play it safe. Now I'll go up there and see what's going on. There has to be a ventilation shaft up there somewhere."  
ater, just outside Carpathia Palace...ght find some informatino ce.

Tariel climbed up onto the roof and found a ventilation shaft. He opened it up and peered into the hole. A voice shouted up from below:

"I see you up there. You don't have to come in up there."

"Oh, no, I've been discovered. I'll have to get out of here," Tariel thought.

The voice continued: "The main entrance is on the east side of the palace."

Tariel climbed back down the rope. "I was right," Artalax said. "Just like that voice said, we can go in through the main entrance."

And so they went through the main entrance. But what would they find?


	15. Intelligence Gathering

**Chapter 15: Intelligence Gathering**

When the heroes went through the main entrance, they were immediately stopped by an armed guard.

"Halt. What business have you here?", the guard stated.

"We wish to have an audience with the King," replied Tariel.

"We don't have a king."

"You mean you're a democracy?"

"No, of course not. We're not that far advanced yet. We still have hereditary monarchy. We do have princes. But not one of them has ever survived long enough to become a king."

"Okay, then I'd like to speak to whoever is in charge here."

"You would like to speak to Prince Larethian? Okay, but you must tell me why you wish to do so."

"We are emissaries from Altaria. We have reason to believe that an evil plot is brewing within this kingdom."

"You're probably the twentieth group I've heard say that in just the past couple weeks. Like we keep saying, there's no evil plot. You can talk to Prince Larethian if you'd like, but he'll laugh at you just like he laughed at everybody else."

"Okay, we'd like to do that."

"Fine, then, take a number," the guard said, and handed Tariel a slip with the number 2,387 written on it.

A voice boomed from the back of the hall. "Okay, next up, number 724."

"We've never had to take a number like this before," Tariel said to the guard. "Is this one of these new technology things you Carpathians do?"

"I wouldn't call it high technology," the guard replied, "but I can imagine you would given how primitive all you Altarians are."

"Can you please stop insulting our kingdom," Tariel said. "Just constantly being treated like you're from some primitive tribal culture really gets on my nerves."

Tariel heard another booming voice. "Next up, number 725."

"Okay, at this rate it'll take forever for it to be our turn," Tariel asked. "Is there any way to get what we want faster?"

"Well, if all you want to do is look up information, you can try the royal library in the basement. But like I said before, if you're looking for evidence of an evil plot to rule the world, you won't find it."

Tariel, Artalax, and Talia went down to the royal library, while Robari stayed upstairs to keep watch in case anything went wrong.

_A few hours later, in the royal library…_

"So, what have you found?" asked Talia.

"We haven't been able to find any evidence of an evil plot. But we did find some information about the history of the Larethian dynasty," Artalax explained.

"What did you find?"

"The dynasty began with Prince Larethian I. According to the history books, he made major reforms that revolutionized the kingdom. But strangely, he was assassinated just months after he ascended to the throne."

"Is it more specific? Does it say what the reforms are?"

"Not a lot. The one word that keeps coming up is 'respawning'. But none of the books say anything about what respawning is."

"You wonder why all the books have to be so cryptic like this. You'd think they would just be more clear once in a while," said Tariel.

"Well, they do help provide jobs for wizards like me, who can help decipher them," said Artalax.

"Okay, did you dig up any information about Kalmeth?"

"Here's what I found out. Apparently, Kalmeth used to be a graduate student at Carpathia University, which according to this is one of the top-ranked academic institutions on the continent."

"Okay, what happened next?"

"It says that he left the University under mysterious circumstances."

"Can you be any more specific?"

"Not really. I mean, if I could me more specific, then the circumstances wouldn't be mysterious anymore, would they?"

Suddenly there was a loud alarm blaring from above.

"Attention everyone. We have an assassination attempt in progress. Repeat, we have an assassination attempt in progress. Please evacuate the building immediately."

"See, I told you there could be a coup at any moment!" said Tariel. "You should have listened to me!"

"Okay, well, we have to get out of here. I think there's a secret passage over there."

"I have a better idea," said Tariel. "We have to be heroic. Let's go up to the throne room and save the Prince."

_Later, in the Prince's throne room…_

Tariel, Artalax, and Princess Talia rushed upstairs to the door to the throne room.

"Let me get this straight," said Tarlia. "We save Prince Larethian, then since I'm a princess, I get to marry him and we live happily ever after. Is that right?"

"Marry him? But you've never even met him!" said Artalax.

"But that's how it works in all the books, right? Wait, actually, the princess usually marries the hero, so that would be one of you, but I don't know which of you is the main character and which is the sidekick, and there might be someone else involved – this is really confusing."

"We don't have much time," Tariel stated. "Let's go in."

"Okay, but I hope we finish this mission soon," replied Talia.

The heroes kicked open the door and burst into the throne room. There, they saw dozens of monsters of all different types – orcs, goblins, gargoyles, and one who looked eerily similar to an uruk-hai – coming in through a hole in the roof. Several elite guards were fighting against them. Prince Larethian himself was also fighting, but the monsters kept coming and it was clear the guards would fall soon, leaving the Prince trapped in a corner and defenseless.

"We've come to help!" shouted Tariel, and rushed toward the monsters.

"I'll cover you!" said Artalax, casting a magic missile spell at an oncoming orc.

"I would help you here, if I actually had any weapons, spells, or other items with any degree of damage-dealing capability," said Princess Talia.

Within a few minutes, Tariel and Artalax had successfully helped the guards defeat all the monsters, leaving dozens of corpses. Tariel started picking loot up off the corpses.

"You wonder why this skeleton would drop an armor plate," Tariel commented. "Sure didn't look like he was wearing armor when I fought him. Oh, well, I might as well take what I can get."

Tariel, Artalax, and Talia approached the Prince.

"Thank you for saving my life," the Prince said. "Those were the toughest monsters I've faced so far. For a minute there I was worried I wouldn't even survive to beat the record."

"Who are you," asked Tariel. "And what record are you talking about?"

"I am Prince Larethian MCMXCVIII, the ruler of Carpathia. But it's hard to rule since I constantly have to fend off all these monsters trying to kill me."

"And what's the 'record'?"

"Oh, that? It's a record for the greatest number of consecutive assassination attempts survived. The current record is 50, set by Prince Larethian MCCXLIV a hundred and fifty years ago. This is my 48th, so I only need three more to break the record."

"Let's get down to business. I have a couple questions for you."

"Well, I have a question for you: Who are you?"

"We are emissaries from Altaria. We were hoping to speak with you, but we had to wait in a line. This certainly helped us skip the long line."

"Altaria again? I know what you're going to ask me. No, there isn't an evil plan going on. Not in this palace, not in Carpathia City, not in the wilderness. No sir, you won't find an evil plot anywhere in this kingdom. But you will find a lot of evil, they just won't be plotting anything."

"They why are all the Altarians who come here disappearing?"

"I'm not sure. It might have something to do with our technological superiority, though. I bet you haven't even heard of matter-compression technology."

"No, we haven't."

Prince Larethian took a small device out of his pocket and pointed it at the big lump of loot sitting on the floor. The loot completely disappeared. When he pushed another button, the loot appeared again.

"That looks like it will certainly help us store all our loot," commented Artalax.

"Now, do we get a reward?" said Tariel.

"Here is your reward. 1,000 gold pieces, to split between the three of you."

"That's a puny reward. I think we deserve a bigger reward."

"Well, it's all you're going to get. Budgets are tight these days, and I'm almost out of the reward budget for this year. If you want another reward, you have to save my life again."

Tariel drew his sword and put it right up against the Prince's throat.

"Okay, Prince Larethian, you said you've survived 48 consecutive assassination attempts. Unless you want to die on the 49th, you better give us a much, much bigger reward."

"Didn't you say you wanted to be heroic?" asked Talia. "Is this heroic? Threatening the life of the one you just saved?"

"Okay, okay, I'll give you whatever you want. But only one request for each of you. Just please let me go."

"I'd like one of those matter-compression devices you just showed me," said Artalax.

"Just give me four tickets to Altaria," said Talia. "I want to go home. All this killing just freaks me out."

Larethian gave the irequested items to Artalax and Talia, and Tariel lowered his sword.

"Tell me everything you know about Kalmeth." Tariel said.

"Okay, here's what I know. Do you already know about what happened at Carpathia University?"

"Yes. He left under mysterious circumstances, right?"

"Well, after he left he started a business venture. He recruited dozens of top-ranked magical researchers and set up a laboratory in an undisclosed location. But Kalmeth and his researchers made groundbreaking innovations. Particularly, he was essential in developing the advanced respawn devices and teleportation portals currently in use all over Carpathia."

"Just tell me, is Kalmeth the bad guy?"

"No, like I said, he's not the bad guy. In fact, he's a good guy. Were it not for him our respawn technology wouldn't even be a tenth as good as it is today."

"And what is this respawn technology?"

"You've already had two questions. I only answer two questions a person. And by the way, if you haven't already noticed, while we were speaking several armed guards made their way up right behind you, so don't even think about trying to threaten me again."

The guards escorted Tariel, Artalax, and Talia out of the palace, but Robari was nowhere to be found."

"I wonder where he went," said Talia. "I know that before, he was talking about how the Communist revolution would begin and the greedy capitalists would get destroyed, but I don't know what he meant any more than you did."


	16. Election Selection

Author's Note: The "plus" symbol appears not to show up properly in the document viewer. Therefore, I will use the word "plus" even when I mean to use the symbol.

**Chapter 16: Election Selection**

Tariel, Artalax, and Talia walked back inside the city's perimeter defense shield and sat down on a bench. "Okay, let's recap the clues we have so far," said Artalax. "We think Kalmeth is the bad guy, because that's what Robari told us, but we don't know. What we do know is that if we want to find more information we should probably go to Carpathia University. That happens to be right inside the city, so it's convenient."

"Don't forget the quest I got at the tavern," said Tariel. "It's Quest Waypoint 214 on your map. And also, if we go there we might get to fight good monsters on the way."

"Can we just go home?" Talia asked. "This is ridiculous. I had no idea the mission would be this complicated. You came in here without a plan of any kind. You're not even sure who the bad guy is, much less how to find him. Let's just go home so we can live happily ever after. And by that, I don't mean married to each other."

"Why not? You don't like me?"

"Look. I saw you back there in the palace. You didn't even care about saving the Prince's life, all you cared about was your reward. You're just like all the other heroes I've met: arrogant, self-centered, and not at all heroic."

"Okay, you can go home if you want. But we're staying here until we finished the mission. And by the way, wasn't the deal that you would stay as long as we can squeeze in a romantic love scene?"

"Well, if I were to go back right now, since I have no combat abilities of any kind, I probably wouldn't survive long enough to get from the portal back home," Talia said. "But wait, I have a better idea. How about if we use a democratic method to decide where to go next?"

"Democracy?" Tariel asked. "I've heard about it before, but I don't really know exactly how it works. Can you show me?"

"Okay," said Talia, as she reached inside her travel pack. "We've come up with three choices for where to go: the university, Quest Waypoint 214, and home." Talia withdrew three blank butterfly ballots from the pack, and wrote the three choices on each ballot. She kept one for herself, then gave one each to the other two members of the party. "The way this works is that you punch out the hole corresponding to your choice. Then at the end, you give them back to me, and I count them up."

They all filled out their ballots and gave them back to Talia.

"Okay, let's count the votes," Talia said, looking through the ballots. "Artalax voted for the University, I voted for home, and Tariel voted for home. It's two to one, we're going home."

"I didn't vote for home!" Tariel said. "I voted for the Quest Waypoint! Don't try to cheat like this!"

"No, you punched out the wrong hole on your ballot. You see, the top hole is for the waypoint, and the middle hole is for home, and – "

"Look. You know what I meant to vote for. Wait a second, I demand a recount. Give me your ballot."

Talia gave Tariel her ballot. "Look, Talia, you didn't punch out the chad all the way on your card. That means your vote doesn't count. Which means it's a tie. How about that?"   
"Wait," Talia said. "You can't just jump in and demand a recount. In order to recount the ballots you first have to go through the –"

"Just forget the butterfly ballots," Artalax said. "We'll say that Tariel voted for home, but Talia's vote doesn't count, so it's a one to one tie. Let's try this again and just write down what we want."

Tariel leaned over and whispered in Artalax's ear. "Let's both vote for the Quest Waypoint so we can outvote Talia. We'll go to the University later."

They turned over their ballots. "Okay, it's two votes for the Quest Waypoint, one vote for home this time," Artalax said. "We're off to the quest waypoint."

"I know you stole the election, but as you always say, we do have to be united against evil," Talia said. "But before we go into the wilderness, don't you think it would be a good idea to get equipped first?"

_Later, outside the __War-Mart __Supercenter__ in __Carpathia __City__…_

Tariel looked in awe at the gigantic store. "War-Mart Supercenter," the sign said. It was many times bigger than anything he had ever seen before. Looking through the windows he could see just about anything he could think of for sale. But what really caught his eye was an advertisement on a poster in the window:

-------

CLEARANCE SALE! ALL WEAPONS MUST GO!

Plus-4 Sword of Destruction (Mk. II) – Only 600 Gold Pieces!

-------

"_Only six hundred?_" he thought. Back in Altaria, even a single point of enchantment would run at least a thousand, probably more, and even then you'd be lucky if the thing actually worked as well as advertised. Four points of enchantment for only 600 – this was something he had to see.

They walked into the War-Mart and shopped around. Tariel got the Plus-4 Sword of Destruction, Artalax got a Plus-6 magical staff, but Talia couldn't decide what she wanted. "I might as well get this bow and arrow," she said. "Not that I know how to use it, but it's better than nothing, and I can stand back and not be in danger."

…

"1,250 gold pieces", said the cashier after she finished ringing up their order. "That's too high. How about 1,000?" Tariel asked.

"The prices are right on the stickers," said the cashier. "I don't have the authority to change them even if I wanted to. And besides, our prices are low enough as they are."

"What I meant was, back in Altaria, you can haggle with the merchant to reduce the price. And it's really cool because if your haggling skill is higher, you can get a lower price, so you have to decide whether – "

"Well, you're not in Altaria any more. And that's probably a good thing too, given that…"

"…we're so technologically primitive. I know that. I've heard it a lot. But is there any way I can get a lower price?"

"Well, we do offer store credit for loot trade-ins. If you have some loot to trade in, we can apply it towards this purchase."

Artalax took his matter-compression device out of hit pocket and hit the de-compress button. A large pile of loot appeared on the counter. The cashier counted up the loot.

"Okay, this is worth 317 GP, which means you owe me 934 GP overall."

Tariel paid the fee with the money they had earned for saving the Prince. "You know, I am having quite mixed feelings about this place," he said. "You have to admit, the prices in there were way lower than anything I could have gotten in Altaria. But there is something, something a little… unreal about it all."

"What are you talking about?" Artalax asked.

"Like, everything's just so big. Back home, at least when you go into a store you know the guy, so you can haggle with him, and you get to have good roleplaying interaction. But here in Carpathia, it's all geared toward combat. You just get the quest, get the equipment, then go out on your adventure. There aren't even any interesting cutscenes."

"Don't you like that," Artalax asked. "Back home you were always complaining about how there were no monsters to fight. Here there are quests and monsters all over the place."

"Well, yeah, I guess," Tariel said. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."


	17. Ancient Technology

**Chapter 17: Ancient Technology**

The heroes had barely walked out of the city when an orc rushed out of the trees and ran toward them, his axe drawn. Tariel drew his sword and got ready to fight. The orc swung his axe down, but Tariel stepped away from the blow and swung his new sword, killing the orc in one blow. He picked up the loot and put it in the matter-compression device.

"Wow, this new sword is really powerful. They don't call it a Sword of Destruction for nothing." When he looked at the ground, he found that the corpse of the dead orc had disappeared. "Why do you think this is?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Artalax. "Normally I would think it's probably just some microscopic biological scavengers with a hyper-accelerated metabolism, but I definitely detected a temporal distortion field."

"You really do watch too much Star Trek."

"No, I was just – uh – wait, I think there's another monster coming!"

_Several hundred monsters later…_

Tariel saw an unusual object in the field in front of him. It was an ornate pole, about one and a half meters high, on top of which was a crackling orb. About every ten seconds, a lightning bolt would shoot out of the orb in a seemingly random direction. The bolts extended far away from his range of sight, so he couldn't see where they landed. "What is this?" he said.

"You know, you can just read the label," said Artalax.

"You mean there's a label?"

"Yes, there is," Artalax said, pointing out the label affixed to the pole. "TRX-900 temporal reflection device, Kalmeth Industries. I know what you're about to say, and I didn't just make that up."

"Wait. You said this is made by Kalmeth Industries? Isn't he the bad guy? You mean this is the Evil Bad Guy's Diabolical Device? Is this what we're supposed to destroy?"

"No," Artalax said. "Look at the other label. 'Property of the Department of Monster Control. Do not remove. Violators will be prosecuted.' And it looks like it's locked in place anyway."

Suddenly a much bigger lightning bolt shot out of the orb. When the heroes turned to look in its direction, they saw a gigantic ogre-looking creature appear out of nowhere and start running towards them.

"It's too powerful. Run!" Artalax shouted.

_Later…_

While running away from the ogre, Tariel saw what appeared to be ancient ruins – of what, he didn't know – off to the right. "Let's go over there!" he shouted. "We might be able to hide!"

Tariel, Artalax, and Talia turned and started running towards the ruins, aiming for an opening that looked like it led downward. There was no way the ogre would fit through the opening, so if they could make it there they would be safe. They ran with all their might and managed to rush in through the opening, the ogre himself slamming into the wall. The ogre staggered back and walked away.

"That was close," said Tariel.

"You sure are a coward," said Talia.

"What do you mean, a coward? If we hadn't run away we might all have been killed!" said Tariel.

"What I mean is, you won't even face any real danger. You're like every single other hero I've met. You say you're all heroic, but you flinch every time there's actual danger. The only bad guys you fight are guys that are so weak they pose no threat."

"Well, what do you expect? That ogre was level 25! That's more than twice our level!" said Artalax.

"Yeah.," said Tariel. "And, Talia, if what we do isn't heroic, then what is? You know, this is our job. And if we were to take too many risks, we adventurers would be dead before you know it and then there would be nobody to save princesses like you."

"Heroism is about self-sacrifice," said Talia. "Putting yourself at risk for the common good. It's not just about going around, killing monsters, completing the quests, and getting all the nice loot. It's about something more than that. It's about putting others before yourself."

"I'll think about that," said Tariel. "But for some reason, I do have a weird feeling that there's going to be a flashback scene and it's going to flash back to just that line you just said. I don't know why, it's just a hunch."

"Anyway," Talia said, "is this our quest destination? Or do we have to go somewhere else yet again?"

"This isn't our destination, but I have a sense there's a clue somewhere in here," said Artalax. "Let's check it out."

_Several hours later…_

"What did you find," asked Tariel.

"I found some ancient documents. I think the information they hold is crucial.

"What information?"

"This appears to be the ruins of an ancient magical research laboratory. They were developing technology that surpasses anything we have today."

"Wait a second. Ancient technology is more advanced than modern technology? Is that what you're saying?"

"I think so, based on these documents."

"But wait a second. Carpathia's technology is more modern than Altaria's, and it's also more advanced. So technology must be increasing with time. Is it increasing, or decreasing? This is confusing."  
"Well, we can plot this on a graph. So at the beginning, during the time of the Ancients, the technology was advanced. Then, the technology becomes primitive again, and after that, when we get to modern technology, which is advanced, but not as advanced as the Ancients."

"I get it," said Tariel. "So technological development follows a parabolic curve."

"I suppose that would be correct."

"Yes, that's what I thought, but I wasn't really sure. Prince Arthanis was really confusing when he tried to explain it."

"Well, now you understand."

"So, what exactly does this ancient technology do?"

"The most interesting piece of technology I found is in this document," said Artalax, holding up a large piece of parchment showing the plans for a complicated device. "Apparently, this device can actually create a gravimetric singularity."

"Yes, but what does it do?

"In layman's term's, it pokes a hole in the fabric of space-time."

"I know that. What does it DO?"

"Oh, you want practical applications?", said Artalax. "Well, once you create the singularity, you can use it to create portals between the vicinity of the singularity and just about anywhere else in the world."

"But we've already seen that they have portal technology. How is this different?"

"Several things. First of all, the portals are self-sustaining, and don't require any additional energy input once created. And also, you can create as many portals as you want out of one singularity. And one more thing: the portals can't be moved once created."

Tariel thought about his. "I see. So if someone were to build this thing, he could create portals to every region of Altaria in minutes. And nobody would be able to cast a spell to move the portals, so we couldn't do what we did 400 years ago. There would be no way to stop it."

"What do you mean, 400 years ago?" interrupted Princess Talia.

"Don't interrupt our scene," said Tariel. "You're not supposed to be in this scene. And to answer your question, it was explained way back in chapter one."

"I knew that," said Talia. "What I meant was, if it was 400 years ago back in chapter 1, it should be 400 years and three months by now."

"Just deal with it," Tariel said. "You don't think those ancient legends are accurate anyway, do you?"

"I never did," said Talia. "You followed the ancient legend and look at the mess you've got us in."

Tariel turned back to Artalax. "Were you about to say something?"

"I was going to say you were right," said Artalax. "Imagine what could happen if a bad guy got his hands on this. They could create the portals to Altaria, immediately create a mass exodus. There's nothing anyone could do to stop it."

"Well, let's just hope the bad guys don't get it."

"One more thing," said Artalax.

"What?"

"All these documents I found are carbon copies. That means the originals have been stolen."

"What!?" said Tariel. "Did you just say they have carbon paper technology?!"

Almost immediately, the ground began to shake,

"The ground's shaking," said Tariel. "There must be a main boss coming."

A voice came from apparently out of nowhere.

"Defense system activated."

Everyone paused, waiting for what would come next. The voice spoke again.

"Do not be alarmed. You are about to be attacked by a giant robot. This might be a good time to run away if you do not want to get killed."

"Everybody run!" they all shouted in unison.


	18. A Romantic Interlude

**Chapter 18: A Romantic Interlude**

They ran away.

Tariel, Artalax, and Talia rushed out of the ruins and ran as fast as they could away from the giant robot. Artalax took out his MGPS and looked at it while he was running.

"What are you doing?" asked Tariel.

"I'm looking at the map. I think there's a boundary perimeter defense shield off to the right. If we go there, we might be safe."

"I thought we've established that they don't work."

"It's our only chance! Let's go!"

Artalax turned and ran toward the shield, and the other two followed. The giant robot kept chasing after them. However, after a few minutes of intense running, they managed to make it inside the defense shield's perimeter. They all turned and looked at the giant robot, which rose its giant mechanical arm up in the air and slammed it down, but when the arm hit the shield the whole robot suddenly became engulfed in a conflagration of pink lightning bolts emanating from the shield wall and then disappeared completely.

"A spatial vortex," commented Artalax.

"I get it," said Tariel. "The shields let normal people through, but when a bad guy like that robot hits it the shield teleports them away."

"Yes. And my hunch is that it teleports them to that space we were sent to when we first arrived. So it's an overflow mechanism."

"What do you mean, an overflow mechanism?"

"They probably don't want there to be too many monsters. So if the monsters try to invade a populated area, they'll get teleported to a place where they can be dealt with safely. And plus, it makes it safe if you're inside the shield."

"Where are we anyway?"

"According to this map, we're in a small village. It doesn't look like there are many people here, and the shield is less than two hundred meters in radius."

"Hey! Why don't I get any lines?" Talia interrupted.

"What were you saying?" asked Tariel.

"Throughout this entire adventure it's just been you two jabbering about whatever. I've got by far the fewest lines of dialogue of any of us, except maybe Robari, but he's not with us anymore, so he doesn't count."

"I'm sorry. Did you have something you wanted to tell me?"

"Remember back when we got here, our promise about romantic love scenes?"

"Yes. I said we would do a romantic love scene when we saw a sign from heaven."

"That's what I was trying to tell you. Look at that sign."

Welcome To Themistria Heights

An Official Romantic Interlude Community

Robert C. Heaven, Mayor

"Yeah, I see that," said Tariel. "Okay, we'll do the romantic love scene. Let's go."

"Finally," said Talia. "I've waited ten chapters for this. It's about time."

"I'll stay near the perimeter and scout out the area," said Artalax. "We have our communicators."

_A few minutes later…_

Tariel and Talia wandered through the village. The village appeared to be strangely deserted: there was nobody outside and all the houses seemed to be empty. Soon, Talia saw a beautiful marble fountain with water shooting up from its top and then splashing back down. Near the water fountain was a large cylindrical metal object, on top of which was a parabolic dish pointing upward, which projeceted an energy beam upward that coalesced to form the hemispherical perimeter shield that surrounded the village.

"Isn't his just a perfect place for a romantic love scene," Talia commented. "It's just so safe here. Such a beautiful area, protected by that magnificent shield generator, all we need is a little background music."

Tariel noticed a small switch embedded into the side of the fountain, and flipped it. Music began to play in the background.

_Someday my prince will come…_

_Someday I'll find my love…_

"Anyway, Tariel, I just have one question," said Talia. "Do you ever feel there is something that you've always wanted, and at times you feel you desperately need, but you've never been able to get?"

Tariel thought for a moment. "You mean, like a decent health insurance policy?"

"Yes," said Talia. "I've been meaning to give this to you. I wasn't sure you were the right person, but now I realize you probably are." Talia gave Tariel a scroll, and Tariel opened it.

"Adventurer-class insurance policy, Asclepius Medical Services," Tariel read. "Yes, this looks like what I've been looking for."

"Good. Right before Prince Arthanis sent me off to that cave he gave me this scroll to give to the one who rescued me."

"You didn't just say Arthanis gave that to you? You know his items never work."

"How can this one possibly not work?" said Talia.

Meanwhile, just a few hundred meters away, Artalax was looking around when he saw a vehicle. The vehicle was unlike anything he had seen before. It looked like a tank except that instead of the cannon there was a rod that appeared to be used to project magical energy. On the side the letters "DMC" were printed in large block letters. There were also several guards standing around the vehicle. Artalax approached one.

"Who are you? And what are you doing out here?" Artalax asked.

"I'm from the DMC. Department of Monster Control. We're about to turn this village into ruins."

"You're going to demolish the village?"

"Yes. We've already set the self-destruct timer on the shield generator, and we've put TRX-900s all around the area. As soon as the generator blows this device" – pointing to the magical energy projector on the vehicle – "takes the liberated energy and uses it to summon monsters to the area. The monsters destroy everything, and Themistria Heights becomes Themistria Ruins."

"TRX-900s? I've seen them before, but what do they do?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm not permitted to reveal that kind of information."

"Why not?"

"If I did, that would shorten the story by at least five chapters. We have to prolong the clue-seeking for as long as possible in order to make quota."

"Okay, fine. But what about the people? You're not the bad guys, aren't you?"

"Of course we're not. The DMC is a government agency, reporting directly to Prince Larethian. We're in charge of giving Carpathia's adventurers evil to fight while making sure that it doesn't overrun our cities. And as for the people, they've all moved out and most of them are living in Carpathia City now."

Suddenly, Artalax remembered that both Tariel and Talia were in the village – right next to the shield generator, to boot. "I have to go in. I've got friends in there!" said Artalax.

"Hurry. There's only a minute left on the timer!" said the guard.

Tariel and Talia were hugging and kissing each other in a romantic embrace, when suddenly the background music ended and gave way to another sound.

_17, 16, 15…_

"What is that?" said Tariel, looking around frantically.

_13, 12, 11…_

"I don't know, said Talia. "But something bad's about to happen."

_9, 8, 7…_

Tariel and Talia heard Artalax's frantic screams from the distance. "Get out of there now! It's gonna blow!"

"You run away. I'll stay here and fight", said Tariel. "You said you wanted me to be heroic, now I'll be heroic."

_2, 1, 0…_

The shield generator exploded with a gigantic "BOOM". While Talia ran away, Tariel stayed looking at the wreckage of the generator, when he saw a gigantic monster rise up from the wreckage. It was a fearsome monster, half dragon and half demon, similar in shape, size, and appearance to a Balrog from "Lord of the Rings". Tariel drew his sword and got ready to fight.

The monster swooped down with its right claw and grabbed Tariel in its death-bringing grip. The monster squeezed him for a few seconds, dropped him, and then turned away. Tariel was still conscious, but he was unable to move or get up. He could, however, move his arms enough to fish out the health insurance scroll he had received just minutes earlier.

"Okay, according to this scroll I have to pray to Asclepius, God of Healing, in order to get assistance," he thought.

"I pray to you, Asclepius," Tariel said, "to heal me of my wounds."

Asclepius' voice came back down from the heavens.

_Thank you for contacting Asclepius Medical Services. For emergency services, pray "1". For billing inquiries, pray "2". For…_

"One", Tariel gasped.

_Please enter your policy number._

Tariel looked on the scroll and read off the policy number.

_I'm sorry, your level of plan does not cover emergency services. For information about upgrading to the Premium Plus Plan, pray "1". To go back to the previous menu, pray "2". To speak to a representative, pray "3"._

"Three," said Tariel.

_I'm sorry, all our representatives are currently busy. Please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly. Now that I've taken 21 words, not including this sentence, to tell you that you're on hold, you can listen to some really cool music. Here goes…_

But Tariel's injuries were too deep. While he was on hold, he slipped into unconsciousness.


	19. The Temple of Light

**Chapter 19: The ****Temple**** of ****Light**

When Tariel came to, he found himself in a large room, filled with religious symbols and drawings on the walls. A young woman was standing next to him.

"Where am I? Who are you? What's going on?" Tariel asked.

"I am Sister Medica, chief healer of this temple. You are at the Temple of Light in Carpathia City. You almost died out there, but we rescued you and brought you back."

"Am I hurt?" Tariel asked. "Will I be able to move soon?"

"Your hit-point injuries have been healed," Medica said, "but I'm afraid to inform you that your soul has been possessed by a level 6 demonic spirit. It's sapping your energies, so you probably shouldn't leave without it being healed.

Tariel tried to move, but he struggled just to sit up. Medica was right: there would be no way he could adventure in the shape he was in. "So, can I get this demonic spirit exorcised?"

"May I see your insurance policy?"

Tariel gave Sister Medica his insurance policy scroll. Medica looked it over.

"I'm sorry, but it says here that your policy only covers exorcisms up to level 5. You're not covered. The procedure will cost you about 15,000 gold pieces."

"Fifteen thousand!" Tariel asked. "There's no way I'll ever be able to afford that! Am I doomed to be stuck here forever?"

"No, actually. Here at the Temple of Light we're proud to be on the cutting edge of magical healing research. We can heal you for free if you'll agree to participate in a new research study of our latest medical device"

"Well, it's not like I have any other choice. Sign me up."

Sister Medica wheeled over a large crackling orb. It looked similar to the TRX-900 from before, but this one looked bigger and more powerful.

"Put your hand on this."

Tariel reached out and put his hand on the orb. He felt its energy flow through him. Sister Medica then picked up a long dagger, lifted it over Tariel's heart, and prepared to brig it down.

"What is that? You're not about to stab me with it are you?"

"Just wait. This is part of the treatment."

"This isn't some newfangled magic item is it? I've used them. They don't work."

"Actually, this treatment has had almost a 100 success rate so far. This isn't one of those crappy magical items like you might find in Altaria. These are top-of-the-line models."

"Okay, fine. Just try not to kill me."

Sister Medica thrust the dagger down and into Tariel's heart. Immediately after the dagger struck, a bolt of lightning came out of the orb and into Tariel, causing him to disappear.

88.2 seconds later, the orb emitted another bolt of energy and Tariel reappeared standing up. He felt fine, with no demonic spirit whatsoever still in him. At that moment, Artalax and Talia rushed into the room.

"There you are!" Artalax said, waving a magazine. "While you were here I found some top-secret documents that might give us valuable clues!"

"Actually, he bought that at a newsstand outside the Temple," Talia said. "But it still contains valuable clues. At least that's what he seems to think for some reason."

Artalax opened the magazine and showed it to Tariel. "Here's the deal. This is the _Adventurer's Quarterly_, the premier magazine for heroes and adventurers throughout the entire continent. Of course, it's not available in Altaria, since we haven't developed the printing press yet."

"And how does this give us clues?" Tariel asked.

"Well, every year, the magazine publishes rankings of all 378 kingdoms on the continent, each rated by how good a place it is to adventure in. This is its 25th year of publication, and for their 25th anniversary issue they're re-publishing the ratings for all the years, so we can see how it's changing over time."

"So, what does it say?"

Artalax flipped through some pages and poined out a chart. "This chart is for Carpathia," he said. "You can see it's been in the number one position for all 25 years straight."

"Well, I would have guessed that," said Tariel. "Just think about it: We've already gained four levels and we've only been here less than a week. But what does it say about Altaria?"

Artalax flipped through some more pages until he found the relevant page. "Here's the chart for Altaria. It starts out near the top. 10th, 8th, 9th, 11th, the ranking hovers around there."

"Then what?"

"Look right here," Artalax said, pointing to an entry. "Drops from 12th to 32nd in one year. Then 63rd, 99th, 148th, and so on. Now, according to this, this year Altaria is number 378. Dead last. And you should probably notice something interesting."

"I see," said Tariel. "The year when it starts dropping is the same year that Prince Arthanis came to the throne."

"Yes," said Artalax. "The year of the ascension of Arthanis. Also the year that the so-called "Decade of Peace" starts."

"But why would the kingdom's rating go down so much because the kingdom is peaceful?"

"You're right," said Artalax. "Because the kingdom is peaceful. Remember, adventurers make their living by fighting evil, But right now it's so peaceful that there's no evil to fight. Just look at the evil-bad-guy density statistics."

Princess Talia, who was listening in on this conversation, jumped in. "How can you do this?" she asked. "How can you reduce this to mere numbers? True heroism, genuine bravery, the spirit of adventure – how can that be reduced to numbers in some chart?"

"It's right in here," Artalax said, flipping to another page. "It explains the ranking methodology right here. 20 percent of the rating is based on quest availability, 10 percent on MMSKs…"

"What are MMSKs?" Talia asked.

"Marriageable maidens per square kilometer. If I'm an adventurer, I don't want to travel through the wilderness for days looking for a maiden in a tower to rescue. The more marriageable maidens there are per square kilometer, the less time on the average I'll have to travel. Less travel time means more time for action."

"What I mean is, you can' always be concerned solely about efficiency and saving time," Talia said. "Sometimes you have to be concerned about the more holistic human factor."

"We are concerned about the human factor, Talia," Artalax said, "which is why we want to be able to do things more efficiently. Think of it this way. Let's say that, in Altaria, I have to travel for a month to find one maiden like you to rescue. But here, since there are more maidens, I can rescue three maidens in the same time frame. Now, in terms of helping others, which is better: saving one person, or saving three?"

"But, I though the rule is that if you save a marriageable maiden you have to marry her," said Talia. "You mean you're planning on marrying three people?"

"Well, I wasn't aware of any laws specifically prohibiting polygamy, at least in any kingdom I've been to," said Artalax. "But that would have to be another factor I would have to look at. Maybe _Adventurer's Quarterly _should take points off for kingdoms with anti-polygamy laws."

"This whole heroism thing is looking more and more like a scam every day," said Talia, and left Tariel and Artalax to continue their discussion.

"I think this is coming together," said Tariel. "Adventurers from all the way across the continent are coming here, to Carpathia, because it has such good adventuring. And they're leaving Altaria because it's so peaceful, there's no evil to fight. And I think I remember Robari saying something about Kalmeth bribing the evildoers to stop evildoing."

"You're right," said Artalax. "That's the evil plan! He bribes the evildoers, then all the adventurers can't find work so they have to move to Carpathia. So when Kalmeth's forces invade, Altaria will be defenseless!"

"So what should we do?" said Tariel. "Should we go back and warn Prince Arthanis?"

"That won't help," said Artalax. "There isn't much Prince Arthanis can do about it at this point. Even if he tells all the adventurers to stay, they'll still leave, since they can find better adventuring here. He can't keep them there by force - Altaria's military and police forces aren't anywhere near strong enough. He can't offer financial incentives to stay - Altaria's entire economy is based on adventuring, and it's in such bad shape right now that Arthanis doesn't have any money to pay them."

"Then what do we do?" asked Tariel.

"It seems to me that Kalmeth is the guy we should be after," said Artalax. "He probably has a lot of money. He's the one who's bribing the evildoers, and he also owns Kalmeth Industries, which makes all those respawn devices."

"That reminds me. What exactly do those things do? And by the way, if all the adventurers are coming to Carpathia, then how do they maintain enough evil for everyone to fight? I mean, you'd think that with all these adventurers from all over the continent, all the evil would get wiped out pretty quickly and that would be it."

"I have to admit I don't know the answers to either of those questions," said Artalax. "But they might be connected in some way, you never know."


	20. Visions of the Future

**Chapter 20: Visions of the Future**

"I just have a couple more things to ask you," Tariel told Sister Medica. "First, do you have one of those things that you look into and it lets you see into the future?"

"What things?"

"Well, this is a temple, and a lot of temples I've been to have those pools of water – I forget what they're called. But it's just like that thing, that the elves have…"

"What do you mean. "thing that the elves have?" What thing?"

"I mean, the thing that was in the elf village, that the heroes looked into, and it showed what was going to happen if evil triumphed, or something like that. In that Tolkien book."

"Oh, those? Yes, we have one of those. And it's the latest technology too. I'll show you."

Medica led Tariel over to a tall pedestal. "This doesn't look like anything I've ever seen," thought Tariel. The top of the pedestal was a completely flat disk, so it didn't seem like there was any way it could hold water. Also, there were several quartz crystals inset into the top of the pedestal, but the tops of the crystals were perfectly flat and level with the rest of the disk. Medica took a jug of water from underneath the pedestal and poured it onto the top. Strangely, not a drop of water spilled over the side. Tariel looked at this, completely amazed.

"I told you, it's the latest technology," Medica said. "Flat-panel, liquid crystal display."

"What does this show you," asked Tariel.

Medica took out a strange handheld magical device from under the pedestal, and started explaining. "This is the Television of Light. It shows you some things that have already happened…" Medica said, and pushed a button on the remote control. The image of a strange figure appeared in the pool of water, and began talking.

_Next up on the __6:00__ news, we'll show you clips that should have been on the __5:00__ news but we didn't have time to show them then because all our airtime was taken up by commercial breaks. Speaking of which, we'll be back after a word from our sponsors…_

"Some things that are happening…" Medica said, and pushed another button. Another figure came up and started speaking.

_It looks here like the Carpathia Champions are going to coast to an easy victory over the __Transylvania__ Terminators. This just goes to show that good always wins over evil, especially when the forces of good have big-money corporate sponsors to back them up. You're watching ESGN, the worldwide leader in gladiatorial sports…_

"And some things that have not yet come to pass…" Medica said, and pushed yet another button, and another figure came up.

_Coming up next, the first installment of "Survivor 2: Altaria," where 16 brave evil-fighting adventurers have to survive for 39 days in a kingdom with virtually no evil to fight. Who will be best able to adapt, and who will get voted off? Find out after these brief messages…_

"I don't want any of that," said Tariel. "I have lots of other questions I need answered."

"Like what?" asked Medica.

"What just happened at Themistria Heights? What's the big deal with all these respawn devices everyone's talking about? And where can we find Kalmeth? And how do we save our kingdom?"

Medica pushed some more buttons on the remote control. Tariel, Talia, and Artalax gathered around the pedestal. Another figure appeared in the pool of water, and began speaking…

_Hello. I'm David Kaltharion, from Carpathia News Network. The demolition of __Themistria __Heights__ happened on schedule with no problems yesterday, marking the beginning of "Operation Modern Ruins", the largest ruin-development project in Carpathia's history. In this project, all but three of the 79 remaining romantic-interlude villages will be destroyed, replaced with fresh new ruins ideal for adventurers of 25th level and above. Although Prince Larethian decided to initiate the project at the behest of numerous adventurers who complained of a lack of high-level content in the kingdom, many princesses and other romantics, as well as monster-rights groups, are protesting outside the palace. To get the full story, let's go to our palace correspondent, Jenoria Firebright._

(At this point, the image switches to a view of Carpathia Palace. There are two main groups protesting outside: one consisting of princesses, the other consisting of monsters. The princesses are holding up signs saying "We Want Our Love Scenes!" and "Romance, Not Killing". On the other side of the palace is the monsters, who are chanting "No Blood For X.P.!" and "We're Monsters, Not Loot Factories!". The image then cuts to the palace's throne room, where Jenoria (JF) is interviewing Prince Larethian (PL)).

JF: _So, Prince Larethian MCMLXL -_

PL: _That's MCMXC –_

JF: _Okay, yes, I forgot. Prince Larethian MCMXCIV, or was it VI something…_

PL: _Would this be easier if we just used Arabic numerals?_

JF: _Yes, you're right. Prince Larethian the One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, I'd like to talk about your new ruin-development program. Is it true that you gave Kalmeth Industries the no-bid contract to provide respawn devices for the new ruins?_

PL: _No, those allegations are completely false. There was a completely competitive bidding procedure. Of course they were the only one bidding, but really what can you expect? After all, they're pretty much the only provider of respawn devices in the market right now._

JF: _That leads into the point that I want to talk about. Kalmeth Industries has been a major donor to both your campaign as well as the campaigns of your last 347 predecessors, and considering that they have to gain so much from this project, some critics have suggested the the real purpose of this project is to please your corporate donors. How do you respond to those allegations?_

PL: _Like I said, this has nothing to do with corporate donors. We're doing this project for the adventurers. Even in your network's public opinion survey, over 97 of adventurers say they supported Operation Modern Ruins._

JF: _Yes, but there are lots of other people who oppose it. There are people protesting outside the palace right now. In particular, how do you feel about the female companions to the adventurers, who might never be able to have a romantic love scene again?_

PL: _Well, Jenoria, female companions aren't the ones providing our tax revenue. If some female companion doesn't like it, she can just go right back through the portal, back to Altaria or whatever backwater third-world kingdom she came from, and have romantic love scenes there all she wants. We don't mind. But the way we became the #1 kingdom for adventurers as well as the world's economic powerhouse isn't by lounging around doing weird sappy cutscenes all the time. We've been expanding since the beginning of the Larethian Dynasty, and we aren't about to stop now._

JF: _But you do realize that dozens of female companions are lined up ouside the door of this throne room. And although they aren't very good at melee combat, you should realize that many female companions, especially princesses, are much better with ranged weapons than you would realize._

PL: _Well, let's see, I would have to say…_

(At this point, the huge doors to the throne room open to reveal whole bunch of females holding bows aimed at the Prince. They all fire their bows, sending dozens of arrows rocketing through the throne room. Several arrows hit Prince Larethian, causing him to slump over dead. One arrow, however, accidentally hits Jenoria in the head. She drops dead too. The image then becomes blurry, and is replaced with the words:

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES – PLEASE STAND BY

A few seconds later, the image switches back to the newsroom it was in initially, with David Kaltharion speaking.)

_Well, it looks like we weren't able to complete the interview as we had planned. But don't worry about Jenoria, though; we've got plenty more palace correspondents where she came from. Anyway, we've got plenty of exciting programming coming up for you later tonight. Stay tuned for "Kalmeth Industries: Good or Evil?", an investigative report, coming up tonight at 11 only on Carpathia News Network. I'm David Kaltharion, signing off. And now for a word from our sponsors…_

"Good. This gives us information," Artalax said. "Let's make sure to be back here by 11. Kalmeth looks like the guy we should be looking for, and we want all the information on him we can get."

"By the way, I noticed before that you were talking about not having a lot of money," Medica said. "Do you want to make a few extra gold pieces?"

"Sure, why not?" Tariel replied.

"Okay," Medica said, giving Tariel a brown package. "Deliver this to the Heal-O-Aid Arena. It's on the other side of the city."

Tariel had done this kind of mission many times before, but Medica had one more condition. "It has to be there by 10:30 tomorrow morning."

"Oh, man, not another FedEx mission," Tariel said, as he took the package.


	21. The Arena

**Chapter 21: The Arena**

Tariel, Artalax, and Talia stood in front of the Heal-O-Aid Arena. It was the largest open-air gladiatorial arena they had ever seen, but the one thing that made it different than all the other arenas they had visited while in Altaria was the abundance of posters plastered all around the walls. All the posters showed the same image: a gladiator, clad in full battle armor, drinking a bottle of strange blue liquid. The bottles had the words "Heal-O-Aid" written on them.

"I wonder what those are?" remarked Tariel.

"It looks like the Heal-O-Aid is a healing potion," said Artalax. "That's what the liquid looks like. And it makes sense that gladiators would be drinking it since they get wounded in battle."

"I know that," said Tariel. "What I meant was, why do they have to put all these posters up? Normally, when I want a healing potion I just go to the apothecary and get one. I don't see what all the posters have to do with it."

"I guess that's just another mystery of Carpathia that we'll have to find out," said Artalax.

"Let's deliver this package," said Tariel. "There's a door over there that says 'Deliveries.' I think that's where we should go."

"Wait, I have a better idea," said Artalax. "Maybe we should take a look at what's in the package. It might be something we could use. Even if it's not that, it could give us a clue."

"You mean you're going to take what's in the package?" said Talia. "That's not very heroic, just stealing other people's stuff."

"Come on' it's not like they even look at what's in the package anyway, let alone use it," said Artalax. "I've done FedEx quests a lot, and they're always the same: the guy just takes it, gives you the reward, and the bag disappears. Don't know why they need it, but, hey, if it gives me money, then I'll do it."

Artalax opened up the package. There was a small, unusual-looking device there. It looked similar to the remote control they had seen Medica use back at the Temple, but it was bigger and had a wire coming off of it that could be used to plug into the MGPS device. On the back of it there was a sticker: "PTD (Deluxe Edition). Kalmeth Industries."

They took the device out of the package, and then re-sealed the package so it did not looks as if it had been tampered with. "Wow, this Kalmeth guy must be really rich," commented Tariel.

_A few minutes later, inside the Arena…_

Tariel approached the person behind the counter, carrying the package. "Hello. I've come to deliver this package," he said. "Are you the person who I'm supposed to deliver it to?"

"Yes," he said, and took the package. He stacked the package upon top of a pile of similar packages, not even bothering to look inside. He then gave Tariel fifteen gold pieces.

"Well, I guess Artalax was right," thought Tariel. "They really don't look inside the packages. Maybe we can do this next time too." But the man behind the counter had something else to tell him.

"You three look like strong fighters. Are you interested in trying to win the grand prize of 250,000 gold pieces?"

"What do I have to do?" said Tariel.

"Today is Open Challenge Day," he explained. "That means any team of three can challenge the current top-ranked gladiator team. If you win then you become the reigning champions, plus you get the 250,000 gold piece prize."

"That sounds good. I think we can handle it."

"Be warned, you'll be facing some tough competition here. The current top-ranked team is the Carpathia Champions. They're currently 116 and 0 this season."

"Well' if they've won 116 times in a row, they must be due for a loss," said Tariel. "Where do we go to sign up?"

"Just go down the hall, to the training room. They'll tell you everything you need to know."

_A few minutes later, in the Arena…_

A1 Announcer 1

A2 Announcer 2

A1: _I'm James Darien._

A2: _I'm William Drugaskan. And you're watching ESGN, the worldwide leader in gladiatorial sports._

A1: _It's Open Challenge Day here at the Heal-O-Aid Arena, when teams from across the world can bypass the normal qualification procedures and compete directly against the best gladiator team in the world for a chance at fame and, of course, the coveted 250,000 gold piece cash prize!_

A2: _It's__8:04 PM__ right now, so if the Carpathia Champions can hold out for another 3 hours and 56 minutes, then they will have successfully retained their title as the world's greatest gladiators!_

A1: _While we're waiting for the gladiators, let's have a brief word from our sponsors. Today's 250,000 gold piece cash prize is sponsored by the Government of Carpathia. For the past 400 years, under the leadership of the wise and benevolent Prince Larethian MCMXCVIII –_

A2: _No, Jim. It's MCMXCIX. MCMXCVIII got assassinated a couple hours ago._

A1: _I'm just reading what it says on the script here. Okay. Under the leadership of the wise and benevolent Prince Larethian MCMXCIX and his predecessors, the Government of Carpathia has made sure that the kingdom's adventurers never run out of evil to fight. And we import maidens from all over the world, so whenever you kill a powerful monster, you can be sure there's a beautiful female just waiting to be rescued. Carpathia. Where everybody lives happily ever after._

A2: _Some restrictions may apply. Offer not available in all areas. Maiden availability not guaranteed. Additional surcharges may be required. Tax, title, and license fees additional. 2.9 percent APR available only to most qualified buyers. Additional information –_

A1: _Enough, William. Now, let's introduce the contestants. First, coming in from the left side of the arena, give a hand for your Carpathia Champions!_

Three gladiators entered the arena. In addition to their regular arms and armor, each gladiator was carrying another item. The one on the left was holding aloft a package of six bottles of blue liquid. The one in the middle had a powerful-looking shield. And the one on the right had a weird device that looked like a remote control. However, it also looked almost exactly like the one Tariel and Artalax had found in the package.

A2: _According to the rules, each contestant is allowed to bring one item into the arena that has been given to them by their corporate sponsor. First, on the left, give a hand for Joseph Sextius!_

A1: _Joseph Sextius is sponsored by Heal-O-Aid. Now introducing the new Heal-O-Aid 35-50, with super-powered healing formula for all your adventuring needs. Whether you've been hit by an arrow, slashed by a sword, or poisoned by poison, Heal-O-Aid helps you get back on your feet. Heal-O-Aid 35-50: 35 percent more healing with 50 percent fewer calories!_

A2: _And our next contestant, Valerian Valinor!_

A1: _Valerian Valinor is sponsored by Athena Technologies. For thousands of years, Athena Technologies has been proud to provide top-of-the-line weapons and armor to the most worthy heroes. Of course, due to market pressures we've had to redefine "most worthy" as "being able to pay our exorbitantly high prices", but it's about the same thing. Athena Technologies. The patron of heroes._

A2: _And for our final contestant, Helkat Norenia!_

A1: _Helkat__ Norenia is sponsored by Kalmeth Industries. Here at Kalmeth Industries, we've developed dozens of products all designed to make your life as an adventurer easier. Our latest, and the one Helkat is using today, is the PTD-1000 Personal Teleportation Device! Now, for the first time, you don't have to trudge for days through wilderness to get where you want to go – you can just teleport right into the enemy ambush! The PTD-1000 Personal Teleportation Device from Kalmeth Industries. Spend less time trudging through wilderness, and more time getting shot at!_

On the other side, Tariel, Artalax, and Talia entered the arena. The announcers begain to introduce them.

A2:_ And, on the other side of the arena, our challengers, the Altaria Avengers!_

A1: _First, give a big round of applause for our first challenger, one of the great Paladins of Altaria: Tariel!_

A2: _And now let's welcome a second contestant – this one is a wizard: Artalax!_

A1: _And, finally, the third contestant, this one is a real princess – Princess Talia!_

A2: _Here's the weird thing, Jim: according to this sheet, none of these contestants even have corporate sponsors! They did have the option to select their sponsors before battle, but for some reason they chose not to._

A1: _Yes. They said something about not wanting to sell their souls out to the capitalist system, or something like that. But without the additional support, our challengers are going to have a tough time beating the Champions._

A2: _So, will well-intentioned but naïve and misguided idealism win this battle, or will better technology and superior resources prevail, just like they have the last 116 times? There's only one way to find out. Let the battle begin!_


	22. Gladiatorial Combat

**Chapter 22: Gladiatorial Combat**

The buzzer sounded to begin the battle. Tariel wanted to charge at the enemy, but Artalax told him to hold back. "They're more powerful than us. We have to stay back and use ranged weapons if we want to win." Artalax casted a spell to impede the enemy's advance, while Talia aimed his bow and shot at Helkat. Although the arrow looked like it was going to hit, at the last split second Helkat magically disappeared and reappeared a couple meters to the side.

"That is the right way to use a bow, isn't it?" Talia asked. "I mean, I really haven't used one of these before…"

"Yes, you got it," said Artalax. "Now focus on the battle or we're going to lose."

A2:_ We've got a special surprise this round, Jim. A new environmental hazard right in the middle of the arena. This is sure going to make our gladiators change their tactics!_

A trap door in the middle opened up and a pole came up. On top of the pole was mounted a magically enchanted machine-gun-looking thing that was shooting out a hail of firey bullets sideways. The gun automatically turned toward the Avengers' side of the arena. Artalax ran up toward the machine gun, grabbed it, and forcibly turned it around, aiming it at Valerian.

A1: _Now that's a tactic you don't see every day. It's a good thing Valerian's got that shield. They don't call it "top-of-the-line" for nothing!_

Valerian kneeled down and but his shield up in front of him, completely blocking his whole body. The bullets hit the shield, but even several seconds of sustained fire didn't so much as make a dent. Artalax turned the machine gun toward Helkat. Helkat ran away to escape from the approaching bullets, but it was clear he was about to get trapped into a corner with nowhere to wan. He activated his PTD-1000, and teleported adjacent to Artalax. He stabbed Artalax in the back, causing him to fall. But while he was falling, he grabbed onto the machine gun and turned it toward him, thus hitting, and incapacitating, Helkat.

A2: _This is clearly an exciting battle. One down on both sides, but that gun in the middle doesn't look like it's working anymore…_

When Artalax had grabbed the gun as he was falling, he had inadvertently pulled it off its pole, so it was now sitting on the ground, useless. Valerian saw this and made his attack. He rushed toward Talia , drew his sword, and stabbed Talia straight through the middle. But just after Valerian stabbed Talia, Tariel turned around and stabbed Valerian in his now vulnerable back.

A1: _This is the closest battle there's been in a long time. Two down on both sides – it's one on one now. Will our challengers take home the 250,000 gold pieces? It all depends on what they do next…_

Tariel and Joseph faced each other. While Joseph didn't seem to have any weapons, Tariel knew he could never be sure. He didn't want to close to melee range, but he himself had only a sword, and no other weapons. So Tariel made a brave but desperate move – he drew his sword and threw it at Joseph like a dagger. The sword lodged itself straight in Joseph's midsection. Direct hit! Joseph staggered back, and looked like he was about to fall.

A2: _Well, I'd never thought I'd have to say this, but it looks like … he's dead, Jim!_

A1: _I'm not so sure about that, William…_

Joseph took out one of his bottles of Heal-O-Aid and chugged it. Now almost fully healed, he took the sword out of his body and charged at Tariel, who was now defenseless. Joseph hit Tariel, who fell down, defeated.

A2: _I guess you were right. It was a close match, but it looks like the Carpathia Champions have just earned their 117th straight victory! Will the next group of challengers fare any better? Probably not, but you can find out after these brief messages…_

_

* * *

_

Tariel, Artalax, and Talia, woke up in the arena's healing room. They were lying on beds, barely able to move. A priest approached them.

"Where are we? What's going on?" Tariel asked.

"Open Challenge Day just ended," the priest said. "Nobody was able to beat them. The Champions kept their title."

_Oh, crud_, Artalax thought. _That means it's after __midnight__. We missed that show that was at 11._

"Drink these,' the priest told Tariel, Artalax, and Talia, giving each of them a 20-ounce bottle of Heal-O-Aid. When they drank the healing potions, they immediately felt a lot better and were able to hop out of their beds and walk out the door.

"You have to admit, this mission is a quagmire," Talia said.

"What do you mean?" asked Tariel.

"You dragged me into this mission without any kind of a plan. Okay, so we beat those monsters that the Gatekeeper made us fight. But aside from that we keep losing. And you have no exit strategy."

"Well, you were the one who insisted on coming with me on this mission," replied Tariel. "And now you say you don't want to be here. You're a flip-flopper, Talia."

"I did vote for coming here, before I voted against it," said Talia. "Or something like that. Maybe it was the other way around. But my point is that you went in here completely blindly. You had no justification."

"Yes, we did," said Tariel. "Kalmeth is here and he's concocting his evil plan. And we don't know the full extent of his power.He might destroy the world! We have to make a preemptive strike before the evil plan comes to fruition."

"Look, you had no credible evidence that there ever was an evil plan of mass destruction. And you still have no credible evidence, even after we've slaughtered hundreds of innocent monsters. You just made all that up."

"No, I didn't", said Tariel. "Look, back in chapter 19 we figured out what the evil plan is. Our kingdom is going to be completely destroyed by Kalmeth's forces unless we find him first. Now that we're in, we can't leave until we accomplish the mission."

"Even still," said Talia, "we still need a better plan. We've already had four casualties already, if you count the time the monster almost killed you back in Chapter 18 and the three of us that got knocked out in this battle. We definitely need better equipment, not like the hillbilly armor we've been using so far."

"See, you're flip-flopping again," said Tariel. "You were the one who voted against the 87-gold-piece appropriations bill to get the plus-3 battle armor with 10 percent base damage reduction."

"Well, um, I'm not sure … that was iffy," Talia said. "But still, you have to admit you have no plan. So far we've just been bouncing over the adventure map trying to do side quests. You don't even know where we're supposed to go next. And even if you did, you have to admit we didn't bring in enough troops to beat the main bosses."

"Okay, so we had bad intelligence," Tariel admitted. "But at this point, what would you do next? How would you handle this situation differently?"

"We have to form a coalition of the willing," Talia said. "We need high-level allies."

"Yes. High-level allies. You mean one of those wise and benevolent mentor-type dudes. Kind of like Yoda, in that George Lucas book."

"Well, yes, that would work," said Talia.

"I would suggest going to Carpathia University at this point," said Artalax. "We know we can find information on Kalmeth there. And there's thousands of students training to become adventurers, and dozens, if not hundreds, of instructors. I'm sure one of them will be wise and benevolent enough to teach us what we need to know."


End file.
